Muse Quest
by Tuima
Summary: Today is March 1st in Middle-earth. Again. An unfinished fanfic can really ruin your day -- especially when you find yourself stuck in it.
1. Prologue

Unfinished fanfic is a terrible thing. Anyone who has spent any amount of time in the genre knows this. What few of us fail to appreciate, however, is that we limbo'd readers are by no means the worst off. I ask you to consider...

What happens to the characters?

**MUSE QUEST**

**Prologue**

Lady Coralie hadn't written.

That might not be a major concern for the populace at large, but for the poor souls addicted to Coralie's gripping -- and long-abandoned -- piece of fanfiction, it was very, very_ much_ a concern.

Dilly raised her face from the keyboard and stared dismally at her monitor, utterly unconcerned by the type imprinted on her forehead and even more unconcerned with the rows of "lclclclclclclclc" that filled her screen.

This was all Cebu's fault. There ought to be a death penalty for people who recommend fanfics that never got completed. And considering what Dilly had been put through, it should be a very long and nasty death penalty, involving spiders, maniacal laughter, and long stretches spent dangling over lava pits.

What could make a fanfic author write again? Letters? A petition? Bribery?

Dilly tugged restlessly on her long dark braid. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt.

Threats?

Dilly's expression turned distant. No one had tried _threatening_ Lady Coralie before…

…For the very good reason, said her more practical half (all right, her practical 9/10ths: Dilly was not given to impracticality), that no one had anything to threaten her _with._ She lived in Australia; Dilly and her friends couldn't exactly fly down there and hold her pet chihuaha or whatever for ransom.

Which meant they were never going to see another chapter of _An Aussie in King Aragorn's Court._

Cebu _so_ deserved that lava-dangling thing.

Dilly glared at the photo next to her computer. It showed her best friend Eredolyn on one side and a beaming, poofy-haired Cebu on the other. Cebu had a paper clutched in one hand – probably her latest letter from Coralie. The two of them were thick as thieves... or had been, until the author dropped off the face of the planet.

-- An important point should be made here. Cebu did not and indeed does not look anything like a chihuahua. Nor did she resemble a recently-stepped-upon bug, which is the next closest creature to a chihuahua as far as looks go. In fact, Cebu may be considered completely opposite to a chihuhua in appearance, because she was actually attractive. So there is absolutely no explaination, logical or otherwise, for Dilly's mind making the leap it did.

Dilly leaned back in her chair, eyes narrowed thoughtfully, the unresolved cliffhanger at the end of _Aussie_ throwing a baleful glow over her face.

Lady Coralie hadn't written.

And it was time to do something about it.

lclclclclclclclcl

Reviews will cause me to perform embarassing attempts at backflips! ...Okay, I know, that's not much of a bribe. But I asks nicely, I does. And if that's not enough, I begs.


	2. What Fans do to Other Fans

**CHAPTER ONE: What Fans do to Other Fans**

The first mistake of the day, Tuima decided, had been waking up.

There were worse mistakes as the day progressed, but that was the first. And it was memorable, because none of the other mistakes were _her_ fault. Mistakes so rarely were, after all.

She strode on, feeling irritable. This was not an unusual emotion for her, except that in this case there was actually a reason for it. That reason involved getting lost – a thoroughly humiliating occurrence for the daughter of a Lorien Warden – and wandering out into some place that was all queer black roads and noisy vehicles and large ugly houses in rows. At first this was intriguing and only a little alarming, but as the day drew on and she still couldn't find anything she recognized, the first tendrils of panic began worming their way into her brain.

Against her better judgment, the Elf stopped several people (such strange-looking mortals!) to ask for directions, but received only odd looks, nervous mutters, and once an exclamation of, "You look like a freak! It's just a movie!" which made about as much sense as a Gondorian ball gown on a troll. By sunset she was frightened, homesick, confused, and very, very irritable indeed.

Somebody, Tuima decided, was going to _suffer_ for this.

"Wow – great costume!" she heard suddenly. Tuima turned to skewer the speaker with one of her trademark glares, and stopped. It was a pretty mortal girl with long dark hair and – Tuima was relieved to see – a dark red dress and a cloak. At last, someone dressed sensibly.

"Where did you get those pointed ears? They look completely real!" the girl said.

…Too bad she wasn't _actually_ sensible.

"Mandos charges four pennies extra if you want them pointed," Tuima said acerbically. "Most mortals forget to carry change."

The girl laughed at that. "My name's Dilly," she said. "Or at least that's what they call me – this club's full of the weirdest nicknames; don't ask me why."

"I won't." _Who names a club? It's just a glorified stick._

"So what's your name?"

"Tuima. Orophiniel."

"Nice one. Are you here for the party? Well, of course you are, or you wouldn't be dressed like that. -- Oh, Ere, there you are. Tuima, this is my friend Eredolyn."

Eredolyn was also dressed normally, in a long green dress. But her hair was cropped shockingly short for a female, and she wore an enthusiastic grin which Tuima associated only with lovers, sportsmen, children, and other people of no discernable intelligence. "Hey… 'Tuima'! Wow, that costume is fantastic!" Eredolyn gushed. "Where'd you get those boots?"

"Imladris."

This was in fact true, and as Tuima had said it with no more sarcasm than she usually dosed every other sentence with, it rankled that both mortals seemed to find it funny. "Don't you wish," said Dilly.

"I sure do," said Eredolyn. "Come on in." Tuima followed them stiffly. "I haven't seen you around before," the short-haired girl said as they pushed through a door and into a room full of conversation and music. "Are you new?"

"Yes," said Tuima carefully, staring around for the musicians. There were none. Nor was there a fire, though the room was warm and well-lit. She was beginning to feel even more out of place than before, even if the room's occupants _were_ dressed in familiar clothing. "Can you tell me the quickest way back to Fangorn, please?"

The two humans exchanged a look. "Fangorn Forest? Like in the books?"

"Yes," Tuima said, deciding to ignore the bit about books.

"Um…" said Dilly suspiciously. Her friend, though, hunched up her shoulders excitedly and asked, "Oh, is this like a trivia game? Fun! Okay, Fangorn Forest… Starting from where?"

Tuima raised an eyebrow. "Here."

Eredolyn paused, deflating. She and Dilly shared another look. "Um… _no_," said Dilly. "It's just a book."

Eredolyn tacked on a sigh. "A really _amazing_ book…"

Tuima opened her mouth for a scorching comment, and then shut it again. There was no point getting into a battle of wits with two obviously unarmed opponents. "Do you perhaps have a map, then?" she asked resignedly.

"There's one in the front of all the books," offered Eredolyn, and dug a very battered tome out of her bag. "There you go."

Tuima studied the sparsely colored page. "Where are we, then?"

"America?" Dilly offered. "If you find it on the map, you get a prize and a nice padded cell."

She thought she'd said the last bit too quietly to be overheard, but Tuima glanced up and observed scathingly, "Well, there is precious little on the map at all. The cartographer appears to have left out nearly everything."

"Tolkien drew it himself," said Eredolyn, in an almost offended tone.

"Who?"

"The _author,_" said Dilly. "Look." She closed the book and pointed to the words "J.R.R. Tolkien" emblazoned on its cover.

Tuima looked blankly at the weird letters. And then her gaze shifted to the illustration: a golden ring, etched with familiar Tengwar characters. She mouthed the first few words and felt the blood drain from her face. They were written in the Black Speech.

"You okay?" asked Eredolyn.

"Beg pardon?" Tuima responded vaguely.

"Are you all right?"

"Oh. Ah, yes. Perfectly. Can you tell me what these letters say?" She pointed to the title. "I'm afraid I'm not familiar with your alphabet."

"Oh. Are you… foreign?"

"I'm beginning to feel so."

"Oh. Well, it just says _The Lord of the Rings_, and then down here,_ The Fellowship of the Ring._"

Tuima sucked in her breath with a little icy hiss. No one was supposed to know about that! Even _she_ wasn't supposed to know about that, at least not in any sort of detail. And what kind of horrible people were these, to cherish books emblazoned with the Dark Lord's title?

"I need to get home," said Tuima bleakly. She pulled herself together; frost grew across every syllable as she continued: "I would like you to tell me how to get to Fangorn. Now, please. Without any more ridiculous babbling about books and authors."

Eredolyn's eyes narrowed. "I don't _know_ the way to Fangorn," she said. "It doesn't exist."

"I was in Fangorn Forest this morning," said Tuima, and now the frost had reached glacial proportions.

Dilly and Eredolyn exchanged a look. Their expressions had a lot to say about weirdos. "That's nice," Eredolyn said at last. "Um, why don't you go get some food or something? We'll see you later, probably."

"Hopefully not," Dilly added in her friend's ear.

Tuima pretended not to hear. She gave them the slightest and stiffest of farewell bows, and strode away. Hopefully there'd be someone in this crowd whose grip on reality was a little firmer than Dilly's and Eredolyn's.

_Some time later..._

"But Fangorn isn't _real_," the blonde human told Tuima. She was the fifth one to do so that evening.

"It's on the map!" Tuima insisted. "Right there!" She stabbed a finger at the decorative map on display.

"Yeah, but…" The girl trailed off, and finally just shrugged. "Well. Uh, good luck…"

"I am _not_ crazy," Tuima hissed at her back. She crossed her arms tightly across her chest, gripping her own shoulders, and added, "I think."

Night drew on. The room stayed bright as noonday, though there was still no sign of a fire or even candles. Tuima sat against the wall, motionless as a statue, and listened to the tide of conversation.

"She hasn't written? _Still_?"

"That's what I heard."

"But the suspense is killing me here!"

"No kidding. This is probably the best piece of fanfic I've ever read, and Coralie hasn't updated in _months."_

"She says her muse has abandoned her and she can't write."

There were groans. "She said that?"

"So how does she get her muse back?" asked the blonde girl Tuima had spoken to earlier.

"I dunno… lasso her?"

"Maybe they should hold the next club meeting in Greece," opined a young Man with a thick accent and wild dark hair. "On Mount Helicarnasus. We could sacrifice someone to the Muses. Sweet-smelling savour, and all that Homeric rot." He grinned.

"Har, har."

"I volunteer," said Eredolyn, waving her hands. "So long as I get to finish reading Coralie's fic in heaven. And I think it's Mount Helicon. The Muses have a spring there; if you drink from it you get inspired. Have you guys had any of these cookies yet? They're really good."

The boy took several, and eventually wandered away. His departure seemed to be some sort of signal: the remaining three girls – Dilly, Eredolyn, and the blonde girl – launched into a bout of intense whispering. They obviously didn't think anyone could hear them (didn't they know that Elvish hearing was far superior to their own? Idiotic mortals). The whisperers made frequent references to their earlier conversation: _Coralie_ and _fanfic_ being the most common words. There was another word they kept throwing out: _Cebu_. After a while Tuima decided it was a name. She didn't really care much; she was a bit preoccupied.

The girls' conversation continued for nearly an hour, while the party ebbed and flowed around them and finally began to drain away altogether. At last the blonde girl, whom the others called Eicys, gave a decisive nod. "Tonight, then?" she asked.

"Might as well," said Dilly.

"I can't wait any longer," Eredolyn agreed. "Onward, Immies!"

The three of them gathered purses and jackets, took down the last decorations, rolled them neatly, and left. Dilly touched a square on the wall, and the lights went out suddenly, without a single servant to extinguish them.

Tuima didn't move. She wondered if she were going insane: it was the only explanation she could think of.

After a second Eicys poked her head back into the room. "Hey," she said uncertainly. "Um... the party's over."

"Thank you," said Tuima without looking up. "I think I spotted that on my own."

"You can't sleep here."

"I don't have anywhere _else_ to sleep," Tuima told her icily. "There aren't even any proper trees in this city."

"We have trees," said a bewildered Eicys.

"None tall enough to sleep in."

"Oh. Um. You really don't have anywhere to stay?"

Tuima shook her head.

"Hang on a second." Eicys disappeared. Tuima looked around: hang on to _what_, exactly? She shrugged and settled back against the wall.

Eicys' head reappeared. "Do you have any money?"

"Just a little," Tuima said warily.

"Well, there's a motel over by the university; you could stay there. Eredolyn says she'll give you a ride, if you really need one." Tuima hesitated a moment longer, then nodded. She stood up and crossed over to the door. "Woah," said Eicys. "How'd you do that?"

Tuima raised an eyebrow. "What, stand up?" she supplied sarcastically.

"Well – yeah – I mean… You just kind of…" Eicys scooped a hand smoothly through the air. "Like floating… Never mind."

Tuima rolled her eyes, and followed Eicys out of the building. What was wrong with this daughter of Men? She ought to know that just because the Secondborn were hopelessly clumsy did not mean that the Firstborn had to lurch around the same way.

You would almost think she'd never heard of Elves before.

lclclclclclclclclclc

"Calm down, will you? I'm barely going forty!"

"Forty _what_?" asked Tuima through gritted teeth.

"Uh, miles per hour," said Eredolyn. "Are you drunk or something?"

"No, but I think I'd like to be. Did you say _forty miles in an hour?"_

"Yeah…?"

Tuima muttered something in an odd, liquid language and gripped the seat cushion until her hands were white to the wrist.

"So…" said Eredolyn, turning to Dilly for inspiration. "Uh, great party, don't you think?"

"What?" asked Dilly, watching Tuima out of the corner of her eye. "Um, yeah. Um, lots of fun. Didn't you think so, Eicys?"

"Oh. Um, yeah. Uh, Tuima, are you going to… Hey! Hey, there she is, there's Cebu, she's walking home! Stop the car!"

"I can't, she'll see us!" cried Eredolyn. "I'll pull up over there." She swung smoothly into a cul-de-sac and cut the engine.

"_That_ was the Cebu you talked of all night?" asked Tuima from the back seat. "She does not look menacing at all. Why in Arda are you planning to kidnap her?"

This earned Tuima a stunned and chilly silence.

"You were _listening?_" Dilly asked at last.

"Well, if you insist on 'whispering' so noisily, you must expect to be overheard. What do you want with this Cebu? She looked almost laughably harmless."

"Fat lot you know!" said Eredolyn heatedly. "She introduced us all to fanfiction about a month back, and then she showed us this story by LadyCoralie, and now none of us can sleep at night!! Coralie hasn't updated her story in _forever_!! But she and Cebu know each other, so we figured we can hold Cebu ransom and _make_ her write chapter 41!!"

"Valar preserve me from multiple exclamation points," muttered Tuima.

"She's coming," hissed Dilly. "Let's go."

The girls piled out of the car – and found their path blocked.

"Excuse us," Dilly ordered Tuima, but Tuima didn't move. Instead she pulled a long knife from a shoulder holster and began to play with it idly. "I cannot let you kidnap someone just to find out the ending of a story," she said.

"Be _careful _with that thing!" said Eredolyn.

"-- _Unless_," Tuima continued, "you promise to help me."

"Help you how?" Dilly demanded.

"I need a place to stay, a decent map of the area, and some supplies. In return for these things and your oath that this Cebu will not be harmed…" Tuima produced a coil of thin grey rope and waved it at the Immies.

Eredolyn was first to smile. "It _is_ a nice touch, tying her up."

"I guess Tuima could sleep at my house," said Eicys doubtfully, eyeing the knife. "My parents are out of town. And we can swing by Sonic or something for the supplies."

"Better decide fast," said Dilly, "Cebu's almost here."

"I say yes," said Eredolyn.

And, as Cebu caught sight of them just then, that seemed to settle the question. "Hey guys!" she said brightly. "What brings you all here? Who's the friend? I _love_ your ears, by the way!"

Tuima slid her knife smoothly out of sight again, but didn't let go of the rope. "That compliment is beginning to grow stale," she muttered.

"Cebu, this is Tuima." Eredolyn informed her friend, who had twinkly blue eyes, a curvy smile, and hair like an exploded copper mine. "We've just finished telling her about Coralie's story."

"Oh!" Cebu gushed, "Isn't it _great?_ Have you seen the new comments on Chapter 40? They say that there's a good chance Lady Coralie will post soon."

"Really?" asked Eredolyn eagerly.

"How soon is soon?" asked Dilly, more practically.

"Well, she's got writer's block, and she's been sort of under the weather, so… within the year, I guess."

Even Cebu, who radiated eternal optimism as bright as her poofy red curls, looked a little glum at this. But the others looked positively grouchy. "A year?" demanded Eredolyn, folding her arms. "No way are we going to wait that long."

"But there's nothing else to do," Cebu insisted nervously.

"Well, actually, there is," Dilly smirked.

Cebu shivered involuntarily. She was surrounded by four girls with rope, threatening poses, and gleaming eyes. In three cases they were gleaming with fanaticism; in Tuima's case they appeared to be glazed with condescending boredom. That was not comforting either. "What do you mean?" asked Cebu.

"Well...to tell you the truth, old friend...we're desperate," Eredolyn confessed. "It's the absence of Chapter 41, and gosh darn it we're gonna do something about it."

"That something includes you, Cebu," Eicys put in.

"Me? But…" She stared at the circle of fanatics surrounding her. "Wait!" she began.

"Get her!" cried Eicys.

Cebu shrieked, turned to run, and tripped over Tuima's smoothly extended leg. Ten seconds later, there sat Cebu on the pavement, her bright copper curls standing on end and an expression of astonishment plastered all over her face. She was tied up neatly as a Christmas present.

"Holy Hannah," said Dilly. Whatever else one might have to say about Tuima – and Dilly could think of a _lot_ to say about Tuima, very little of it complimentary – she had at least one thing going for her: she was eerily fast.

"What are you guys _doing?_" cried Cebu.

"Quick, get her in the car before she wakes up the neighbors," said Eredolyn.

"What? No! Get off me! Help!"

"It's for the greater good," panted Eicys.

"I'm your _sister_!" Cebu yelped indignantly.

"Really?" asked Tuima, intrigued. "There is very little familial resemblence."

"We can discuss genealogy later," said Dilly, heaving her struggling friend into the backseat. "Get in!" Tuima threw the smelly metal box a sideways glance, but climbed in behind their captive.

"This is ridiculous!" Cebu was wailing as Dilly slammed the door and hopped into the passenger seat. "I tell you about a really good fanfic and you tie me up?"

"I'm failing two classes because of you," Eredolyn said sternly. The car roared to life.

Tuima gritted her teeth and held on tight. Sometimes, when life turns upside down and backwards and spits you into an unheard-of civilization populated by fanatical Sauron-worshipping human girls with ludicrous hair and no sense of the bonds of kinship or the respect due the Eldar, those are the only things left to do.

lclclclclclclclclclclclclclclclclc

Reviews make me happy, yesss, preciousss, very happy.


	3. Into the Woods

**Chapter Two: Into the Woods**

**Disclaimer: I bow before Tolkien's powerful intellect and his estate's powerful lawyers. Nothing you recognize is mine, unless you're recognizing it only from the previous chapter. Alas.**

Tuima took back everything nasty she'd ever said about this place. She had discovered chocolate shakes.

"Well, at least it keeps her quiet," Dilly muttered to Eredolyn as they sped away from the local Sonic Burger.

"But that's her _third one!_" Eredolyn hissed. "They were supposed to be for all of us!"

"Except Cebu," Tuima put in calmly from the backseat, tipping the cup upside down and scraping out the last dregs of chocolatey goodness. The other two exchanged glances: Tuima had freakishly good hearing. "I notice you haven't fed her anything but gruel all day," Tuima continued. "And her sister keeps singing that song through the closet door at her."

Eicys had indeed been singing _Oliver_ at her sister on and off all day:

_"Food, glorious foooooood!_

_Hot sausage and mustard!_

_While we're in the mooooood!_

_Cold jelly and custard!"_

"I don't understand what she hopes to accomplish by it," Tuima finished.

"Um… it's funny," said Dilly.

Tuima gave her a slow stare.

"Unless you're someone utterly without a sense of humor," Dilly grumbled to herself. "I keep forgetting about that."

"It's torture tactics," Eredolyn explained with relish. "We've got to let Coralie know how much her friend is suffering, so that she'll be properly motivated to write."

"Your other 'torture tactics' seem to be of a… dare I call it humorous?... nature as well," observed Tuima.

"Just because they make her laugh doesn't mean tickling or Fluffy Pillows are _funny_," said Eredolyn. "Cebu was absolutely begging us to leave her alone and go send Coralie the ransom note."

"Think it'll work?" Dilly asked.

"Coralie hasn't written yet," sighed Eredolyn. "Maybe we _should_ use spiders. Cebu _hates_ spiders."

"We could play number 11 on the RotK soundtrack while we did," Dilly put in with a grin.

"Ooh. Nice," said Eredolyn as they pulled into Cebu's driveway. She and Dilly discussed demi-tortures all the way down the stairs to Cebu's bedroom, where her closet-prison was being guarded by Eicys.

Who was currently fast asleep.

While the closet door stood open.

With no sign of Cebu in sight.

A small pile of limp grey rope and a bowl of congealing oatmeal were the only signs their captive had left of her imprisonment. Exploding with rage, Eredolyn grabbed one of the burger bags and began beating Eicys over the head with it.

"No! Stop!" Dilly cried. "That one has the onion rings in it!"

"Of all the careless, stupid--!" Eredolyn yelled.

"Ow! Ow! _Stop!" _Eicys squealed, shielding her head. Onion rings or no, being awakened by Sonic-bag-beating is not a pleasant experience. "What did I do?"

Eredolyn pulled her upright and pointed towards the empty closet.

Eicys gaped. "Oh, uh… that."

"Yes, that!"

"But… but how did she…?"

Dilly examined the empty bowl and the plaster dust littering the carpet. "Her oatmea – gruel spoon," she said. "She dug into the wall next to the lock and pushed it back, see? But _how_ did she get out of this?"

Dilly held up the limp silver rope, which still held one intricate knot. Eredolyn grabbed at it and gaped angrily when it fell apart as smoothly as if it were a slipknot. She whirled on Tuima. "Well done, really brilliant," she growled. "Didn't you ever learn how to tie a knot?"

"It's Elven rope," said Tuima. A chill radiated off her words as from the basement of a morgue. "It tends to be… sympathetic to those in need."

"Elven rope, my eye," Dilly said. "Just admit you made a mistake like a normal human being, okay?"

"No. I am not normal, I do not make mistakes, and I am most emphatically _not _human. Thank the Valar."

"All right, that's it!" snarled Dilly, while Eicys muttered, "Well, she got the 'normal' part right at least."

"Dilly!" Eredolyn interjected, trying to break up what promised to be a very nasty fight. "We don't have time for this. Cebu has escaped, but she can't have a very big head start. Where would she go? She couldn't have gone out of the front door, because it was still locked when we came back."

"Back door, then," Dilly said, grudgingly distracted from her quarrel. "Into the woods!"

"All right, gang! Forget the next batch of oatm – gruel and fluffy pillows for now!" Eredolyn cried."We're going on a hunt! Let's suit up and move out!"

Eicys rooted through every closet in her house for warm dark clothing, while Dilly stuffed hamburgers into backpacks and Tuima argued about having to find room in her elegant but overstuffed pack for the flashlight Eredolyn had given her. Eredolyn gave up on the argument when her primary point ("It lights up when you push the button, see? Sheesh, where are you from, anyway?") failed utterly: the batteries were gone. Tuima raised a single sarcastic eyebrow and Eredolyn was left to deliver her motivational speech in a rather disgruntled mood:

"Fellow torturers! The hunt is on!" she declared. "We must retrieve the Cebu or we will have no power to make Lady Coralie write, and we will never see the next chapter of her incredible story!" There were winces. "Oh," Eredolyn finished, "and the next time someone wants to feed a prisoner, forget the spoon! Just FLING the freakin' gruel at them!"

With these inspirational words, Eredolyn flung open the back door and bounded down the steps. "Hit the backyard lights, would you, Tuima?" she called over her shoulder.

Tuima looked at her blankly. There was a long pause.

"Oh, boy," groaned Eicys. "I'll do it." She flipped a switch and they all blinked as the backyard was flooded with light, casting the tangled forest of scrub oak into sharp relief. Tuima threw up a hand, squinting at the bright lanterns. She had never gotten used to the strange methods of illumination these even stranger mortals used.

"So," said Eredolyn, "let's spread out and comb the woods, moving… what's it?" She hazarded a guess: "North?"

"West," Tuima corrected her with a long-suffering sigh.

"Whatever," said Eredolyn, waving them onward. "Move out, troops!"

"Valar preserve me," muttered Tuima, and followed.

There was relative silence, save the snapping and crunching of twigs and dead leaves on the ground. It broken by a cry: "Ow!"

"What? What happened?" Eredolyn whispered.

"I stubbed my toe!" Dilly muttered furiously. "I swear, I can't see a thing out here!"

Tuima glanced at the night sky. "There is a quarter moon already risen," she said. "Apparently, mortals have dim mental _and_ visual acuity."

Eredolyn's exclamation fortunately came before either Dilly or Tuima could wither to ash under the force of the other's glare. "I can see Cebu's tracks!" she cried.

"Where?" The others crowded around.

"See! A footprint!" said Eredolyn enthusiastically.

"And look here!" said Tuima, crouching to examine the prints. "See, she's moving this way." Tuima followed the tracks, bent over and pointing out signs of Cebu's progress through the woods. A broken twig, some displaced leaves, an indentation in the moss… The others began to look increasingly bored. When Tuima smugly showed them the fourteenth bent grass blade, Eredolyn groaned loudly. "Wow," she said, dripping sarcasm all over the forest floor.

"Thrilling," commented Eicys, adding to the puddle.

"Ooh, ooh, _look, _it's a piece of grass!" said Dilly, flooding them all out.

"Well… Tuima's enjoying herself at least," said Eredolyn. And she was.

"It's just like Haldir taught me back home in Lorien!" Tuima said happily. "I've never had a chance to do any _real_ tracking until – " She broke off. They were staring at her again. She muttered something nasty under her breath and went back to tracking.

"Weelll…" said Dilly finally. "While Tuima's on her fantasy trip… I'm hungry."

"Me too," said Eredolyn. They watched Tuima a while longer. "She seems to be on top of things." There was a pause. "Eicys, go find us some more oatmea – uh, gruel."

Eicys stomped off grumbling. _Why do I have to bring the oat – the gruel? I don't even like gruel! Just because I accidentally let Cebu escape, I have to do all the work. Why does the youngest always get left behind?_

She trudged through the forest until it began to thin out and she could see her house's backyard light. She stomped inside still muttering dire imprecations against selfish older fanatics.

She started some water boiling, then sat down at the computer to check Coralie's story for updates. She gasped. There was an author's note! Eicys dashed to the stove and poured in the oatmeal mix, then frantically skimmed the writer's message:

_I am busy and still trying to hunt down my muse. If you see her, send her my way, quick smart! _

"Hmph," said Eicys. She wondered if Coralie had even gotten their ransom note. She stomped back to the stove, spooned the goopy grey glop into plastic baggies, and stomped back outside again.

That's when the screaming started.

lclclclclclclclclclclclclclclclclclclclclclc

It only happened because they were bored. Eredolyn hadn't realized that tracking would be so dull. Tuima seemed pretty entertained, but Dilly and Eredolyn were left to trade yawns over the top of her head.

"I'm going to go look ahead," said Eredolyn.

"No!" Tuima called after her. "You'll disturb Cebu's – Ah, never mind. I don't know why I'm helping you two anyway," she added. "I've already kept my side of the bargain."

There was a strangled yell from up ahead, then a louder shriek. Dilly's head came up fast, and she was dashing off through the undergrowth in the skin of a second. "Ere?" she called. "Are you okay? Eredolyn!"

Tuima growled something unrepeatable under her breath, unsheathed her knife, and followed.

She caught up with Dilly just outside a clearing, and stopped dead. That _smell_… And sure enough, when she crept closer, there they were, standing in a rough circle and looking puzzled. The biggest of them – and he really was enormous – had Eredolyn by the ankle.

"They're orcs," Dilly mumbled. She was pale with shock. "_Orcs._"

"What did you expect?" hissed Tuima. "The borders of Fangorn are crawling with the foul things."

"Fangorn isn't real!" Dilly whispered. "Orcs aren't real!"

"I'm sure they'll appreciate your explaining that to them." Tuima edged a little closer to the clearing. Dilly followed, and earned herself a scathing look when a leaf rustled at her passing. She ignored Tuima, concentrating on her friend.

"…I can't believe it," Eredolyn was saying, the words curiously indistinct. "This is so cool! I mean, you look exactly the way I always imagined – you even smell bad!"

The orc holding Eredolyn dropped her unceremoniously on the ground and unsheathed his scimitar. "I don't think ye're takin' this too seriously," he growled. "Let's see what we ken do teh change that, huh?" The other orcs snarled eager agreement.

"We have to do something -- she's hurt!" Dilly hissed to Tuima. "They hit her on the head!"

"Hm," said Tuima. "I don't think I'd have been able to tell a difference."

Dilly set her teeth. "You are an absolute jerk, you know that?"

The point of a scimitar descended toward Eredolyn's face. Eredolyn batted it away with reflexes born of a decade of karate, and sat up a little. A trickle of blood was running out of her hair and soaking the collar of her shirt. "This is amazing!" she slurred. "I mean, you're even bigger than the Kiwis who played them in the movies! Hey, Uruk-Hai! Can you do that whole head-butting thing?"

Dilly winced. "Maybe if we just back away slowly – "

"From the orcs or the madwoman?"

"--We can go find the police and…"

"There's no time!"

"What are we going to do, then?"

A voice cut into the whispered conversation: "Well, whadda we 'ave 'ere?"

Tuima whirled, moving unnaturally fast. Her knife scythed through the air and deep into the throat of the orc behind them. The creature fell backwards, gurgling, an expression of astonishment stamped eternally on its ugly face.

"It worked?" Tuima said numbly. "It worked!"

"Yes, good, well done," said Dilly. "Now run!"

The girls turned – and crashed full into the waiting grip of another uruk. Tuima brought her knife down savagely; the monster howled and stumbled back.

Dilly winced at the inky orcish blood spattered across her shirt. "Oh," she said. "Yechh."

"It's pronounced 'yrch'," said Tuima, now in a fighter's crouch. "Do you have a weapon?"

"No!"

"Of course not," sighed the Elf. "Get your friend; we've got to get out of here."

"Mmp!" was all Dilly said. Tuima turned to see the human wrapped in an orc's meaty arms, fighting viciously. The Elf growled something that does not bear repeating. She darted forward, ducked neatly around the orc, and buried her knife in its ribs.

It made a noise Dilly would never forget, however much she wanted to. Black blood went everywhere; it scalded her skin and soaked her sweatshirt as the orc spasmed and keeled over, almost landing on top of her.

Tuima grunted. She was kneeling next to the still-shuddering body, tugging at something. "Uh… Tuima?" said Dilly, as the remaining orcs advanced on them. "_Tuima!"_

The Elf didn't look up.

"What are you doing?" Dilly shouted at her.

"My knife is stuck! It won't come – " An orc backhanded her so hard that she flew three feet and hit a tree. It made a noise like a baseball bat against old plaster.

Tuima sat up groggily. She only made it halfway before turning a funny greyish color and clutching at her head. "Oh…" she mumbled, and passed out cold on the forest floor.

Dilly stared at the limp body, then at Eredolyn, who was watching with appreciative horror, and then at the group of Uruk-Hai advancing on her, weapons drawn. "Oh, that's just perfect," she said, and did the only sensible thing to do at that point, which was to whirl around and take off running.

She didn't get very far at all.


	4. Hobbits and Uruks and Elves, Oh My

**CHAPTER THREE: Hobbits and Uruks and Elves, Oh My**

**Our Characters Thus Far:**

**Dilly – **sarcastic, strong, and stubborn. Has long dark hair, olive skin, and a quirky smile.

**Cebu – **a cheery redhead with a serious Frodo Fetish.

**Eredolyn **– a true Tolkien fanatic. With a concussion. No more need be said.

**Tuima – **an Elf. Nobody likes her much.

**Eicys – **Cebu's younger sister. We hate to use a word as clichéd as "plucky," but if the shoe fits…

**On with the show!**

Dilly cracked open an eye, saw only a reddish blur, and closed it again, with the reasoning that if she was really bleeding that badly she didn't want to have to see it. But then --

"Fancy seeing you three here," said a voice that was, against all the odds, _chipper_.

Dilly opened both eyes this time, mostly out of disbelief, and realized that the red blur she had seen was in fact hair. And hair that big and that red could only belong to… "Cebu! What are you doing here?"

"Uh… being tied up and generally abused? Again. How about you?"

"Likewise. Um, minus the 'again' bit. What's going on?"

The redhead squirmed around as best she could with her hands and feet tied. "I think… I think we've been captured by orcs," she said, her tone a mix of desperate, disbelieving, and determinedly cheerful.

Dilly beat back a memory of being grabbed from behind, huge clawed hands, ugly laughter, rope… "_I_ think," she said, "that I've gone insane. Or maybe Eredolyn's gone insane, and it's contagious. This is the sort of thing that _she_ would hallucinate."

An injured voice spoke from behind her: "You say that like it's a bad thing."

"Ere!" said Dilly, twisting around. "Are you okay?"

"Are you joking?" asked Eredolyn. "Tell me you're joking."

Dilly glanced around at the clearing full of orcs, at their bound hands, at the dried blood clumping her friend's short hair. "All right, maybe 'okay' is a bit strong," she said.

"Strong?" repeated Eredolyn. "You're crazy! Those are orcs! Real live smelly vicious eat-your-unnecessary-legs orcs! And you think 'okay' is a bit strong?"

Dilly, who had enough cuts and bruises from her struggles to appreciate the 'vicious' bit, opened her mouth to defend herself. She was interrupted by Eredolyn's fervent exclamation: "This is _fantastic!_"

Dilly paused with her mouth still open. After a while she gained enough control of her hanging lower jaw to say, "You wanna run that by me again?"

"Do you realize where we are?" asked Eredolyn. "I heard them talking. They said they wanted to have some fun with us before they have to report back to… guess where? Orthanc!"

"Oooh," said Dilly, her usual gift for sarcasm deserting her in the face of utter bafflement and a fast-growing terror.

"Do you know what this means?" Eredolyn bubbled. "It means _we're in_ _Middle-Earth!_"

There was a groan, and something that Dilly had taken for a log in the darkness shifted a little and opened its eyes. "You act as though you haven't lived in Middle-earth all your life," said Tuima. She touched her head with bound hands, and winced. "You might as well get excited about breathing."

"You got over that bump pretty quick," said Dilly, a bit coldly. "I thought you'd be out for hours."

"Elves heal quickly."

"Will you come off the whole Elf thing already?" Dilly growled. "Just because there's a gang of monster-things in Cebu's backyard doesn't mean you're the long-lost daughter of Elrond or something! There is such a thing as taking fanaticism too far! There is _no such place_ as Middle Earth! Got it? It's made up – it's fantasy! In fact, you can just take those stupid, plastic, pointless, ugly, fake ears off right_ now_!" With that, she seized the point of one of Tuima's ears with her bound hands and gave it a vicious tug.

Tuima let out a yell. "Let go!"

Dilly did so promptly, her eyes the size of saucers.

"Eredolyn…" she whispered slowly, never taking her eyes off the irritated Elf. "Ere, her ears … are stuck to her head."

"What did you expect them to be stuck to?" snarled Tuima. "My elbows?"

"You're… really an Elf."

"Your powers of observation never cease to amaze" said Tuima, in a voice acidic enough to eat through steel.

Dilly shut her eyes. "This is too much," she said.

"Are you kidding?" Eredolyn demanded incredulously. "This is great! Not only is Isengard a few miles away, not only have we met up with a real live band of Uruk-Hai, but now we get to be tied up next to an Elf!"

"Wha… I… What? " Tuima stammered. "What is wrong with… How can…" Finally she gave up, threw her arms in the air, and swore very nastily indeed in Sindarin.

Eredolyn was undeterred. "So it really _was_ Elven rope that you used to tie up Cebu?" she asked gleefully. "It's all real? You got it from Lothlorien or something? Ohmigosh – Lothlorien! We're here anyway, we could totally visit Lothlorien! And Rivendell! And _Rohan_; I would _kill_ to see the Golden Hall – " She broke off abruptly. "I could meet Eowyn," she said, pouring several years' worth of hero-worship into that one statement. "Wow. _Wow._ I mean… wow…" Her eyes shone. "And then there's the Fellowship," she continued, "Aragorn and Legolas and Frodo and – "

"Stop right there!" shrieked Cebu. Eredolyn's blissful ramblings stuttered to a halt. The others blinked at her. Even the orcs stopped what they were doing (arguing over who got which captive and for what – a discussion Dilly was trying very hard not to listen to).

"What?" asked Eredolyn. Then, as a dreamy lassitude crept over Cebu's face, she and Dilly groaned loudly and simultaneously, "Oh,_ no_."

"What's wrong?" demanded Tuima.

"She's obsessed with Frodo," said Eredolyn.

"Beyond obsessed," agreed Dilly. "Infatuated." Tuima was still looking blank, so Dilly twisted to gesture at the redhead. "Just look at her," she said.

Cebu was sighing rapturously and murmuring about "dreamy big blue eyes…"

Tuima looked nauseated. "What's wrong with her?" she asked.

But before Dilly could answer, Cebu interrupted ecstatically: "We might even meet him, and then… and then… You guys, we have to escape!"

"But I want to watch the orcs some more," protested Eredolyn.

"Forget the orcs! We've got a Halfling to find!"

"What's tha' you said?" a nearby Uruk demanded unexpectedly, stalking closer to the trussed-up friends. "A halfling?"

Tuima hissed at Cebu in horrified protest, but it was too late. The redhead carried on joyfully, "Yes, he's absolutely gorgeous, and so _brave_, with that awful Ring and all those Nazgul, and the big eye whenever he puts it on…the other hobbits are cute too, of course, but _Frodo…_"

Tuima buried her face in her hands and bit her bonds fiercely to muffle a scream. The orc was looking at the group with a kind of curious appraisal that she did not like at all. Finally, he lumbered away and began a whispered discussion with two of his fellows.

As soon as he was out of earshot Tuima slid over to where Cebu was still gushing about the Ringbearer, and administered a sharp smack to the top of her head.

"Ouch!" cried Cebu, rubbing it as best she could with her hands tied. "What was that for? That hurt!" She scowled at the group. "You chase me down, tie me up, throw me in a closet, feed me gruel, and now you hit me? What kind of friends are you guys?"

Tuima gave her a look that suggested Cebu had just been found adhering to the sole of her boot. "I," she said, "am _not_ your friend." And then she launched into a tirade the likes of which had not been seen in Arda since Feanor discovered the theft of his Silmarils – degenerating occasionally into Elven insults and swearing in at least six languages. The others stared in fascinated horror as she denounced them to every Vala and Maia known to the Eldar and questioned their ancestors for seven generations.

"…This may seem like a fantasy trip in the woods to you moonstruck morons, but it is _not a game_," she snarled after several minutes of this. "And if I wasn't afraid of being stuck in your ridiculous country again I would escort the rest of you out of this one _right now_, but I don't have that option because we are stuck here surrounded by _orcs_, about to be tortured or worse – and _what do you do?_ Hand them the most dangerous secret in the history of all Arda before they've even begun! Don't you Morgoth-spawned idiots realize what this _means_?"

There was a ringing silence, broken only by Tuima's ragged breathing. Then Eredolyn said in quiet awe, "We just got yelled at by an Elf."

The Elf in question stared blankly for a moment. Then she tipped back her head, raised her hands high, and shrieked uselessly at the stars.

**lclclclclclclclclclclclclclclc**

Eicys crept nervously through the woods, clutching the ziplock baggie full of gruel against her chest. It was not the most comforting thing to be clutching. A weapon of some sort, even a stick, would be much nicer. Or perhaps a teddy bear. You know, just to emphasize how completely out of her depth she was feeling. Because right now, Eicys was so far out of her depth that the fish had lights on their noses.

She was tramping through the dense forest that occupied most of her family's backyard, armed with only a flashlight and a bag of gruel, and she was still hearing the echoes of screams bouncing back and forth inside her skull. At first she'd thought it was Eredolyn, but then there had been a pause and it honestly sounded as though _Dilly_ was screaming.

That was… worrying. Very worrying. Dilly just wasn't the screaming type.

Eicys swung her flashlight in a slow arc. "Hello?" she called. "Eredolyn? Dilly? Is anybody there?"

Silence.

"Heck, I'll even take Tuima," called Eicys. "Guys? Come on, this isn't funny."

More silence.

"I'm serious! Cebu? Come on, you guys!"

There was a scraping, scrabbling noise from somewhere up ahead. Eicys aimed her flashlight at it. "Dilly?"

_Scrape, snuffle, scrape._

There weren't any bears this far from the mountains, Eicys told herself. It was probably a raccoon. Or a squirrel. Or maybe a cougar.

Gulp.

"Cebu…?"

A dark shape moved amid the underbrush. Eicys took a few steps closer, willing the feeble flashlight beam to reach it. It was definitely a human shape, but there was something… off… about it. It was hunched, twisted, deformed. "Hello?" whispered Eicys.

The thing looked up. The flashlight was too dim to illuminate its face, but its eyes shone out at her, a bright, sickly green, gleaming with malice. It let out a gleeful, half-human snarl, and leapt at her suddenly, clawed fingers outstretched.

Eicys screamed and hurled her flashlight into its face. It howled and fell back, and then Eicys was running, running faster than she'd ever run in her life – skipping over roots, dodging branches, zig-zagging between tree trunks, her breath sobbing in her lungs. She kept running until the adrenaline began to ebb, and then, spurred by the last vestiges of terror, she climbed a tree, put her arms around the trunk, and held on tight as her heartbeat slowed from a whine down to at least a purr. Absurdly, she still had the baggie of gruel clenched in one fist. She stuffed it under her sweater for safekeeping and went back to hugging the treetrunk, beating down sobs, feeling her muscles slowly relax again.

_Sniff, snuffle, scrape. Sniff, sniff_.

Eicys stuffed a fist against her mouth to stifle a scream. The gnarled black shape came creeping out of the trees, bent almost double, scanning the ground. It was _tracking_ her. Like a dog. Eicys froze against the tree trunk, not breathing, and stared down at it as it snuffled and slavered and scanned the forest floor.

It stopped. A grin wandered across its horrible face, and it looked up, straight into her eyes.

And then, most terrible of all, it spoke. "'Allo, liddle birdie," it rasped. "Come on down an' play."


	5. Captives and Arrows

**CHAPTER FOUR: ****Captives and Arrows**

For a time the girls lay quietly. Tuima kept her back to the others. She could hear their whispers: "I think we hurt her feelings."

"What did we do?"

"You probably shouldn't have said that about Frodo, Cebu." There was a pause, then: "No, Cebu – Stop that – Snap out of it!"

"Wha – oh. Sorry."

Tuima gritted her teeth and shifted to look at the stars, picking out the familiar constellations until the urge to continue her earlier outburst passed. She tried to take comfort in the idea that despite the fact that her companions had just doomed themselves and all Arda to annihilation, the stars, at least, would remain untouched.

It didn't work.

"Look," Dilly was whispering. "We have to be serious about this, you guys. We're in real trouble. Eicys is missing, there are _orcs_ all around us, we've got no way to escape and frankly nowhere to escape to, and the only person who knows what she's doing out here is sulking."

Tuima's teeth grated audibly.

"…Upset," Dilly amended, rolling her eyes.

Cebu brushed copper curls out of her eyes and said meekly, "What we're trying to say is… Well, sorry, Tuima."

The Elf rolled over to face them. "Sorry," she repeated, in a voice as flat and cold as ice on a gravestone.

The girls exchanged glances. "Um… yes," they said. "We're sorry."

"You have just betrayed the last hope of the West. The Ringbearer and his companions will be hunted down without mercy. The free peoples of Middle-earth have been doomed to slavery and destruction. We ourselves are likely to suffer a lingering, torturous death.

"And you wish to say that you are… sorry."

The other three stared at her.

"Um… really really sorry?" Cebu offered unhappily.

Even Eredolyn's enthusiasm seemed a little wilted. "Do you think we really screwed up the storyline that badly?" she asked her friends. "We can't have. I mean, things have to turn out the way Tolkien wrote them, right? It's his story."

Tuima narrowed her eyes warily. "Story?"

"Yeah. And the good guys win. Even in fanfiction the good guys always win. So we're okay."

Tuima started taking deep breaths. A vein throbbed in her temple.

"Oh man, Ere," sighed Dilly. "I think you set her off again."

But Tuima said only, "Let me know how 'okay' you are feeling once Saruman's minions have finished with you. Until then, keep quiet and I'll try to think of a way to get us out of this."

"Too late," said Dilly. "Here come the orcs…"

**lclclclclclclclclclclclclclclc**

Eicys choked. There was no way that thing was human. No possible way. To mistake that thing for a human would require a bag over its head _and_ her own.

So how was it _talking?_ She moaned and clutched the trunk tighter as it took a few shuffling steps closer to her tree.

"Liddle birdie, all alone in the deep dark woods," it said, showing crooked brown fangs in a grin. "Don't yeh know these woods're dangerous? These trees'll grind yeh teh pulp if they get the chance. Bad place fer a pretty liddle bird teh nest." The monster grabbed a low branch and kicked its way up, still grinning at her.

The tree shuddered. Eicys gasped and held on tighter as it began to rock as if in a high wind; the leering creature let out a yell and dug in its claws. Now all the trees around them were swaying, and a low, eerie groaning filled the air. Branches creaked, twigs snapped, and then –

_Wham._ The tree shook Eicys and her pursuer loose with a vicious snapping motion, and they were sent sprawling on the forest floor. Eicys lay on her back, with all the wind knocked out of her and the beginnings of a truly spectacular bruise down one shoulder.

A face – if you could call it that – suddenly intruded itself into her line of vision. Eicys couldn't manage more than a gasp, but she kicked out frantically and caught the creature in the gut. It grunted and grabbed the front of her sweater. Eicys wrenched backwards, flailing, but it held her fast and raised one hand. A dagger glinted evilly in its fist.

Eicys' world went cold and flat with terror. She couldn't seem to move; she didn't even have the breath to scream as the dagger swept down and across her stomach. Eicys and her attacker stared as blood slowly leaked from the wound.

Gray, lumpy, oatmealy blood.

The goblin-thing was so surprised to see his quarry bleeding gruel, he let go of the dagger. Eicys, numb with shock, pulled the weapon out of the ruined plastic baggie under her sweater and stared at it. It was a crude, jagged blade, hiltless and wickedly sharp. Eicys' fingers curled slowly around the grip, her knuckles turning white. Then she looked up at that twisted snarling _thing_, its claws already stretching toward her eyes – and without even thinking about it, she plunged the dagger straight into the monster's throat.

The next bit gave Eicys nightmares for several weeks. Inky black blood spurted everywhere, splattering her clothes and face: she scrubbed her eyes clear in time to see the goblin keel over backwards, clutching its neck. Its heels pattered frantically against the leaves, and a hideous gurgling noise bubbled out of its mouth, along with a lot more blood. Finally it went limp. Eicys stared.

Its foot kicked a few more times. There was a sigh.

Eicys staggered away into the trees and threw up. This continued long after her stomach was empty, until the heaves turned into great, shuddering sobs and Eicys began shaking too hard to stand. She sank to her knees and wrapped her arms tightly around herself as her teeth chattered and her stomach roiled.

There was a distant yell, and then another. Eicys' protective mental fog turned suddenly crystalline with horror, collapsing around her in icy shards. _My sister is out there_, she thought. _I have to go find her…_

_What if there are _more_ of those things?_

Eicys was no coward, but being attacked by a hideous talking monster in your own backyard is enough to put anyone off of a bold and daring rescue attempt. So she did something that no self-respecting heroine would ever do, and made a well-thought out and sensible choice.

She sprinted back to the house to call the police.

Or at least, she sprinted back to where the house _should_ have been.

It wasn't there now. Instead, the forest cut off abruptly, giving way to a brief wasteland of stumps and scorched earth. And beyond…

Eicys' legs folded, and she landed hard on her backside. After a solid minute of staring, she squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head, hard.

It was still there when she opened them, jutting into the sky like a malignant black finger. Its base was shrouded in gouts of red-lit smoke, and its horned head was lost in the clouds, but there was just no mistaking a building like that.

Orthanc.

_The_ Orthanc. Saruman's tower.

_Well,_ thought Eicys, skirting the edges of another panic attack, _maybe they'll let me use their phone_.

_Ahahaha. Haha. _

_Ha._

_Crap._

**LCLCLCLCLCLCLCLCLCLCLC**

"I think it's stupid!" growled the uruk currently holding Dilly aloft by her tightly-bound wrists. She gritted her teeth and tried to find an unarmored place to kick him.

"Yeah!" said one of the smaller brutes. "One scrawny human mentions a piece of jewelry and you turn all dutiful, hey?" The creature spat at Cebu and missed. The redhead edged away from the nasty wet gobbet and sent up a small thank-you to anyone who might care. "I'd no be s'prised to find you was just tryin' teh cheat yer mates outta some well-deserved fun," the goblin continued. "Thought you'd have 'em all to yerself this way, did yer, Cap'n Gharluk?"

Gharluk howled, snatched a javelin from a companion, and hurled it at the speaker. The smaller creature caught the missile in his arm and toppled heavily to the ground, from which position he screamed obscenities and accusations in a tongue the girls were relieved not to know. But Gharluk just shouted over the uproar: "Anyone else?"

Several of the orcs hefted crude weapons, but no one moved forward. After a pause, one of them asked in a snarling whine, "Why can't we have some fun wiv 'em – just a liddle, hey, Captain? We could give 'em to the master after, wiv none any wiser."

"I'm takin' no chances with any vermin as what know about the master's Halflings," Gharluk growled.

"Gone soft, are yeh, Captain?" hissed an orc with an enormous livid scar across his face. "C'mon, now, we could just have one of them… this one here, say." He leered at Tuima. The Elf returned his look with a glare that should have left his smoking remains plastered against the nearest tree.

"…Or any of them, really," said the orc, looking rather shaken. Tuima smirked.

Dilly rolled her eyes. She had begun to realize that evil glares were a sort of hobby for the Elf.

"Look," said the uruk holding Dilly. He dropped her unceremoniously and grabbed a bow from a nearby orc. "We'll jest do the interrogatin' now, howzat? Lissen up, scum! Tell us everythin' yeh know about th' halflings an' we'll shoot yer friend." He pointed the arrow at Dilly's head.

There was a brief silence. Typically, it was Eredolyn who broke it. "Don't you mean '_or _we'll shoot your friend'?" she asked. "That's a pretty crucial conjunction, you know; it changes the entire meaning of the sentence."

The orcs glanced at each other, their expressions the visual equivalent of a "huh?" Their captives did the same. "Tell me she isn't actually citing grammar rules at a time like this," mumbled Dilly.

"I'd like to," said Cebu, "but I can't." She lowered her voice. "I think they hit her pretty hard…"

The uruk with the bow swung it around to point at Eredolyn. "You're mighty cheeky fer someone in yer position, girlie."

Eredolyn ignored him; she was squinting at the bow. "Holy cow," she said. "That looks exactly like Lurtz's bow in the movie! Doesn't it, guys?"

"Um," said Dilly. But the orc started back, narrowing his eyes at Eredolyn. "Hey!" he said. "She knows about Lurtz! How's she know that? None o' Lurtz's crew've even come back yet!" He pulled the bowstring a little further back. "Talk, human!"

"Enough!" bellowed Gharluk. "It's just more proof that they's valuable. We's takin' 'em to the master, unspoiled. But I'll put in a word fer some brave uruks what deserve some fun. If he don't want 'em, I'll tell Sharkey to give 'em back to us."

His words were met with grumbling approval, and the interrogating orc nodded reluctantly and shot his arrow into the ground at Dilly's feet. She flinched and the brutes roared with laughter before seizing the captives. Cebu stumbled and fell with her face next to the forgotten arrow, and lay there panting until she was grabbed and shoved upright with the others in the center of the clearing.

"Now march, maggots, or the fun'll start here an' now," said Gharluk, prodding Eredolyn in the back with a spear.

"Are you taking us to Isengard, then?" she asked.

"That's right."

"And we get to meet Saruman and everything?"

"B'lieve it, runt."

Eredolyn grinned. "_Cool."_

**lclclclclclclclclclclclclc**

Reviews make my heart sing! C'mon... push that little button!


	6. Coconuts

**CHAPTER FIVE: Coconuts**

**In which much silliness occurs, and Eicys finds herself in serious trouble. Again.  
**

Eicys was taking deep, calming breaths.

They weren't helping.

Okay, she thought. Okay. That's Isengard. So this is Fangorn. I'm in Fangorn frickin' Forest – I'm gonna die! No, stop it, get a grip, Eicys. Okay. Um… That means… That means that thing back there was an orc! An _orc, _fer the love of… of… Augh! How is this happening?

And what's happened to my sister?

As if on cue, Eicys heard a noisy crashing in the underbrush. She scrambled behind a tree with a speed that would make an Olympian stare – terror-induced adrenaline does have its benefits. She stayed completely motionless, until her fright was interrupted by a muffled "Ouch!"

"Cebu?" Eicys breathed. She took her courage in both hands, and edged around the tree trunk until she could see what was happening on the other side.

Eicys' sister was stumbling along in the middle of a gang of orcs, her flyaway curls full of forest debris, her hands tied behind her back. Eicys scowled. Tying up Cebu was a privilege reserved for her sister alone.

Behind Cebu came three other captives: Dilly, Eredolyn, and Tuima. Dilly was stalking along wearing her dreaded Stoic expression – her face was perfectly calm and composed. Eicys knew that at this point, Dilly could have a broken leg, a terminal illness, and a personal thunderstorm following her around, and that expression wouldn't go anywhere. Dilly got like that sometimes.

Eredolyn was bouncing around, peering at trees, gawping at the minutiae of the orcs' armor, and generally acting quite terrifyingly weird. She had dried blood in her hair, and reddish-brown streaks decorated one cheek. Her eyes had the unfocused look brought on only by a bad concussion, absolute fanaticism, or intensive medication. Or possibly all three. It looked as though she had at least two of them down pat, and could use the aid of the third.

Tuima's expression, on the other hand, was sharp enough to have been carved out of ice. She looked… weird. Almost inhuman.

And speaking of non-humans…

Eicys swallowed. The orcs surrounding her sister and friends (and Tuima too, though Tuima was decidedly neither friend nor relation, thank goodness) were much bigger than the twisted goblin-thing that had chased her. That orc had been about her own size. These were _huge._ There was clearly no fighting _them_ off with a dagger and a bit of luck.

Suddenly one of them stopped. He sniffed.

A lump of ice formed in Eicys' stomach.

The orc nudged a companion. "Smell that?" he asked.

"What?"

"A Man. Orc-blood. An'…" He grinned. "Summun's got a weak stomach." Eicys cringed and wrinkled her nose.

"It's jest the pris'ners," said the orc's companion.

"None o' _them_ have bin throwin' up. Nah. I reckon there's another 'un 'round here."

The lump of ice began to grow. Frozen crystals crept through Eicys' veins and stabbed at her heart. She edged backwards, silent as a hobbit.

"Hey. The cap'n doesn't know about a fifth 'un. If we catch it…"

Two very nasty grins. Eicys fought back a whimper.

"You delay the _glam_," said the second one. "I'll go catch it."

"Oh, you will, huh? I don't think so. I smelled it out, and I'm gonna – " The orc broke off with what could only be a swear word. "There it goes – listen!"

"Well, go get it, maggot-brain! I'll keep the others here if yeh give me half, got it? Don't take too long, or we'll march out an' leave yeh to the demon-trees."

The orc gripped its spear and took off into the undergrowth, grinning horribly.

**LCLCLCLCLCLCLC**

"We're stopping?" asked Eredolyn, puzzled.

"Don't complain," said Dilly. "I'm in no hurry."

"I want to see Saruman."

"Look, Eredolyn – "

Tuima interrupted. "It's Eicys," she said. Cebu's head came up sharply.

"What about Eicys?" asked Dilly.

"Weren't you listening? There's an orc going after her. His companion is up there arguing with the captain. Honestly, you three might as well have stuffed your heads with wool."

A certain tightening around Dilly's mouth said that her patience had been rubbed well past raw. But they'd had enough outbursts for one day, she figured. Now was the time to save their strength. She had a nasty suspicion they were going to need it.

"Hold on," she said abruptly. "Cebu, you're bleeding!" A trickle of red was running from the corner of Cebu's mouth.

The redhead nodded and grimaced. "Ischy," she said, her voice oddly muffled, then bent her head to her wrists. It looked as though she were gnawing at the ropes.

"Cebu, what are you doing?".

Cebu looked up, and they saw a black point protruding from her mouth like a bizarre tongue. "I shnap'd the head off tha' ahrrow," she explained thickly. "I'sh really shar'." She returned to hacking at her bonds, curly hair swaying madly around her face as she sawed. Suddenly, there was a startling loud _SNAP!_

"What was that?" asked Tuima, as orcs swiveled around to eye them suspiciously.

"At wis un o iy rohts."

"…I'm sorry," said Tuima, with scathing courtesy. "Was I meant to understand that?"

"I think she said, 'that was one of my ropes'," translated Eredolyn.

"Oh, of _course,_" said the Elf_._ "Well, this is easy: next time I want to understand one of you, I should just give myself a concussion and everything will become quite clear. If I ever feel the urge, in a decade or two, I shall be sure to let you know. Oh, and you _do_ realize that it's a common practice with orcs to dip their arrowheads in poison?"

Cebu looked up, shocked, then violently spat out the arrowhead. "You could have said something earlier!" she cried.

Tuima raised an eyebrow. "I thought everyone knew that."

Cebu stared at Tuima with the expression of someone who believes firmly in the basic goodness of everyone around her. You could almost see the cogs grinding as she tried to reconcile that belief with the looming contradiction that was Tuima.

Dilly had less trouble reaching a conclusion. "You know something, Tuima?" she said conversationally. "You're a jerk."

Tuima smoothed her features into an expression of Elven calm and looked away, her back very stiff. Meanwhile, Cebu had gone back to the problem of her bound wrists, trying to wedge the arrowhead between two rocks and scrape the rope across it. Eredolyn moved to help her, bent over until her short-cropped hair dripped blood across the stones. "Just one more strand…" Cebu muttered, straining, then lost her balance and collapsed as an orc kicked her unexpectedly in the ribs.

"Stop lickin' rocks!" snarled the orc. "And what was that snappin' noise?"

The Immies stared at each other, at the orc, at the sky. "Um…" said Cebu, edging in front of the arrowhead.

"I want an _answer!_"

"Um…" said Cebu frantically.

The orc raised his fist, and Dilly hurriedly intervened. "It was my back."

The orc squinted. "Huh?"

"My back," said Dilly in a voice of steely nonchalance. "It's been creaking and snapping ever since you threw me down here."

"Yeh expect me to b'lieve that?"

Dilly shrugged. "No," she said.

The orc blinked, off-balance. "Well…" he said. "Well – I don't!"

"Oh, darn," said Dilly. "You've caught me."

"Too right, I did," snarled the orc. "Yeh think I'm stupid?"

"Well _done,"_ said Dilly.

A pause. "Well done _what_?" asked the orc.

"Nothing," said Dilly. "That was sort of the point."

Thoroughly frustrated by now, the orc took refuge in threats: "Well, stop yer bones snappin' or I'll snap 'em for yeh!" he said viciously. He stomped off, muttering.

"That was close," Dilly said. "And slightly surreal." Then she noticed Cebu scrabbling on the ground again. "What are you doing?" she hissed. Cebu sat up with the arrowhead back in her mouth and resumed sawing on her ropes.

"No! Cebu, don't do it!" whispered Dilly. "They'll hear you!" But her friend paid no attention. "Cebu…!"

"Everyone start singing!"

There was a startled silence while they all stared at Eredolyn.

"Singing?" Dilly asked skeptically.

"Yeah!" said Eredolyn. "The noise will drown out the snapping!" She grinned at them.

"That's stupid," said Tuima.

Dilly, who had been about to say something similar (but considerably more tactful), suddenly discovered she was a big fan of Eredolyn's idea. "No, it's not," she said. "Come on, everyone. What should we sing?"

"The coconut song!"

Dilly blinked at her concussed friend. "Um… Okay."

A few moments later the ancient trees of Fangorn Forest were being treated to a full-throated rendition of _I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts_. And of course the same orc came back.

"What're yeh doin' _now_?"

"Well, we're singing," Eredolyn replied with manic cheerfulness, as Tuima and Dilly bunched themselves in front of Cebu to hide her sawing.

"_Singing_?"

"Yep," said Eredolyn. "It's called _I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts_. Wanna hear?" Without waiting for an answer, she began, waving a reluctant Dilly to join her.

_"I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts (deedilydeedee); there they are a-standing in a row (dum, dum, dum), Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head-"_

Right there the music ended abruptly, because of course no one knew how the rest of the song went.

The orc stared at them. He was clearly unused to prisoners who sang merry nonsensical ditties, and was trying to figure out how to react. At last he settled for the classic, "Yeh make one more peep an' I'll cut yer tongues out!" and stamped away. The Immies watched him go with a collective sigh of relief.

"So… how does the song end?" Tuima whispered.

Eredolyn looked almost as blank as the orc had. "I dunno… never thought about it before. Huh."

The Elf seemed to take this as further proof that her fellow captives were a few stanzas short of an epic, and merely looked resigned. After a while her head came up, and her eyes narrowed intently.

"What?" asked Dilly.

"The orc who went looking for Eicys is back. I can't hear what he's sayi – " Tuima stopped. She looked almost queasy.

"What?" asked Dilly insistently. "What?"

"He said she's dead," said Tuima. "Eicys is dead."

**LCLCLCLCLCLCLC**

**A/N: I have to apologize; I know this chapter was on the goofy side. In our defense, when we Immies wrote this story we were hyper giddy girls with no idea it was going to turn into a gritty epic adventure. Which it will, actually. We've got narrow escapes, tragic death scenes, swashbuckling sea battles, seriously hilarious misunderstandings involving Haradric butterflies… Tuima even falls in love at one point, which is a sight to be seen. **

**Just give us a few chapters (and a couple of reviews!). We'll get there.**

This sort of thing always happens. It is an example of crudely done Narrative Causality, and while highly convenient to the Author, frequently results in suspicion and/or cynicism in Characters. Eicys is, however, exempt at this point: having spent most of her life as a real person and not as a Character, she is not yet in tune with the nuances of life in narrative form. (Such are the hazards of Girl Falls Into Middle Earth fanfics. It's the written equivalent of turning into a cartoon halfway through a movie).


	7. As Bad As It Gets

**CHAPTER SIX: As Bad As It Gets**

"She's dead," said Tuima. "Eicys is dead."

The Immies stared at her

"No, she's not," said Eredolyn blankly.

"How do you know she's dead?" Dilly asked, her tone fierce.

"I heard the two orcs talking," said Tuima. "The one who went off looking for her was muttering something about a waste of time, and then I didn't catch anything until he said _dead as a warg's breakfast, blood all over the place._"

There was a strange choking noise from Cebu, and then silence again.

"You must have heard wrong," said Eredolyn at last. "That sort of thing… it just doesn't happen. People never really die in situations like this – you only think they're dead for a few chapters. They always show up again."

"I did not hear wrong. I am not like you humans, going around half-deaf. She's dead."

"She's not dead," said Eredolyn.

"She's better off than we are," said Tuima grimly. Before Dilly could ask what was meant by _that_ little piece of cheer, the Elf continued, "Look out, we're moving again."

The Immies were hauled to their feet and forced ahead at a steady jog-trot. The orcs seemed a bit baffled by Cebu, who had turned as pale as a new snowfall. Her eyes looked huge and dark and empty, and she moved along like someone in a dream. She did no more than blink vaguely when an orc shoved or struck her.

Her friends exchanged worried glances. "She's not dead," said Eredolyn again.

Behind them, a broken-off arrowhead lay abandoned in the grass, surrounded by the tiny grey fibers of a half-cut rope.

LCLCLCLCLC

Eicys wasn't sure why she'd run back here, of all places, but it turned out to be a good thing she had. The goblin she'd killed lay sprawled in the leaves like a carelessly dropped rag, black blood puddled around his head and shoulders like a demonic halo. She had seen the dagger still sticking out of him, heard the distant crashes of pursuit behind her, and lost her head completely.

She darted to the body and scrabbled frantically to pull the weapon free. She almost had it when she slipped in the bloody leaves and fell forward, getting the horrible black stuff all over herself. Eicys moaned. The noises were getting closer. She heaved at the dagger, dragging the corpse for several feet before she finally pried it loose. Then, with the pursuing orc practically on top of her, she darted behind the nearest tree, gripped the dagger in nerveless fingers, and waited.

The footsteps stopped only a few feet away. "I know ye're here…" said a soft, growling voice. "Come out an'… Morgoth's bones! Murgash?"

He'd found the corpse. But he seemed unusually shocked, even frightened. That couldn't be right…

Eicys found she couldn't stand the suspense: she peered out of her hiding place, moving as stealthily as she knew how. What she saw completely justified the orc's reaction.

In her panic, she had dragged Murgash's body right up to the roots of a huge and gnarled tree. And now, those roots were winding slowly around the corpse and pulling it inexorably into the ground.

A string of horrified gibberish was spewing out of her pursuer's mouth. Eicys was almost relieved not to understand him: the very sound of the words was dark and foul. He backed away a step, then another, and then turned and bolted the way he'd come.

Eicys waited for several minutes before she let herself relax. The dagger dropped to the ground with a muffled _thump_, and Eicys sagged down beside it, tears boiling out of her, scalding her nose and throat. She choked them back ferociously: there was no time to cry. Her sister and friends – and Tuima, too, though Eicys didn't particularly care about _her_ – were all in trouble. And there was clearly no one around to help them but Eicys herself.

What was she going to do? If she got too close to the group the orcs would smell her out. She couldn't fight. Running would help no one but herself. So how…

Eicys stopped. She stared at Murgash's partially-buried corpse.

She did not like the direction her thoughts were heading.

Not at all.

LCLCLCLCLCLC

Dilly thought things were about as bad as they could get.

This is not a good thought to think. Somehow, it just begs the universe to try and prove you wrong. In this case, the universe did so in an unusually cruel fashion.

The orcs started to sing.

Not all of them – thankfully – but enough to foul the air for a good half-mile and encourage Dilly and Tuima to exchange their first non-hostile look. In Tuima's case it was an expression of nauseated disdain; in Dilly's, a look of abject suffering.

Both expressions intensified when Eredolyn whispered, "It's all so realistic, isn't it? That song is pure orc."

"I wish I could reach my pack," muttered Tuima. "What was the point of hauling thirty pounds' worth of medical supplies all the way from Rivendell if I can't even fix a knock on the head?"

"I'm almost more worried about Cebu," said Dilly, tripping awkwardly over a root. The Immies' ankles were bound, but loose enough that they could jog a little. "At least Eredolyn is happy the way she is."

Tuima glanced around at Cebu. "But – she must have known this would happen, right?"

A slight frost crept into Dilly's expression. "What do you mean?"

"Well – all humans die. You _know_ you will die. Surely you have learned to prepare yourselves?"

There was a brief silence.

"I will infer otherwise from your expression," said Tuima. "I am – sorry. I am not… accustomed to the thought of death. I have never… never known anyone who…" She shook her head. "I don't know how humans manage, with something like that hanging over them."

Dilly was impressed. Tuima was being very nearly civil. She must be under more stress than Dilly had thought. "I'm still not going to believe Eicys is dead until we have proof," she said.

An orc shoved her. "Less talkin', more runnin'!" he snarled. "Almost to the tower, now. Home sweet home." He grinned nastily. "Yeh'll love yer new rooms. There's only one pris'ner what's survived Sharkey's dungeons fer more'n a few months, an' everyone sez 'e's as crazy as a warg wiv 'is tail afire."

A nearby orc bared his teeth. "Thought I told yeh not ter talk about the _tark_," he said.

"Scared?" the first orc jeered.

"Yeah, I am," said the second. "An' yew would be, too, if yeh'd been there the day 'e got out."

"Takes more'n a crazy _tark_ ter scare me," scoffed orc number one.

"Yeah? How 'bout a crazy _tark_ what's faster'n an Elf an' madder'n a troll, an' doesn't even blink when yeh cut 'im? 'E built a barricade outta all the orcs 'e killed an' held the rest o' us off fer two days. _Two days_." The orc shivered. "Yeah. I'm scared o' him, sure."

"What's a _tark?"_ Dilly whispered to Eredolyn.

"Orcish for a Gondorian," said Eredolyn. "A bunch of orcs in the third book thought that Sam was a _tark_ when he came to rescue Frodo."

"Ah…" Dilly tripped over another root. Her Stoic expression was settling over her face again.

"Dunno why Sharkey didn't kill 'im," the first orc was saying. None of the orcs seemed at all out of breath, though they'd been jogging for nearly an hour now. The Immies' conversation at this point was conducted in short, panted phrases, but the orcs looked like they could chat and run for hours more.

"Politics," the second orc grunted. "'e's the son o' some bigwig from the South. I jest hope 'is daddy doesn't come a-lookin' fer 'im, that's all. We got enough problems, what wiv armin' an' trainin' all the new uruks and _ungrathik_."

"Yeh hear about the big _ungrath_ what killed the trainin' master?" asked the first orc. "The one what went all flower-blooded a month or two back? They say…"

Dilly stopped paying attention. Listening to orcish gossip was about as pleasant as a case of stomach flu. She put her mind to work on escape plans, instead. Half of her was convinced this was all a particularly realistic and unpleasant dream, but the other half was getting steadily more terrified the closer they got to Isengard. It was this same half that was also coming very close to snapping under the strain of determined denial. Eicys couldn't really be dead…

Dilly threw another worried glance at Cebu. The redhead hadn't made a single sound since hearing the news, not even when she tripped and gashed both her palms on a hidden stone.

Biting her lip, Dilly looked away again. Now would be a really good time to wake up, she decided. But they got closer and closer to Isengard, and the nightmare continued relentlessly. As the huge gates swung open to admit them, Dilly began to realize that she hadn't honestly believed things would go this far. Stuff like this just… just didn't happen. Not in real life.

Eredolyn, apparently, was thinking along similar lines. Sort of. Bar the 'real life' bit.

"Hey!" she said, as their party made its way through the thick stone tunnel that was Isengard's great gate. "Hang on just one second. We didn't get away! We got taken all the way to Isengard without escaping! That can't be right."

"Why not?" asked Dilly, wondering if she actually wanted to know the answer.

"I know how this works," said Eredolyn, still with that air of puzzled indignation. "We get captured, one of us manages to get free of her ropes, she frees the others, and we all wait for the Opportune Moment and make a run for it. That's just the way it goes. No one ever finds an arrowhead and saws halfway through her ropes and then _doesn't escape_! That would be silly. It's a sign of bad editing, that's what it is."

"I realize I may regret asking this," said Dilly, "but… editing?"

"Of our story," said Eredolyn.

"Our story?"

"Well, obviously we're in some sort of fanfic," said Eredolyn. "Why else would we all be going by our screen names? Why else would orcs tie us up instead of just killing us? Why else would we be in Middle-earth in the first place?"

Dilly thought her friend had a point, but she wasn't about to admit that to herself, let alone anyone else. "We are not in a fanfic," she said. "It's weird enough being inside _The Lord of the Rings_. Can't we just leave it at that?"

"No way would Tolkien write the kind of story we've been in so far," said Eredolyn. "If this were the _real_ Middle-earth we'd all be dead. Or worse."

Dilly expressionless expression would have made a rock envious. "Thank you, Eredolyn, for that uplifting little thought."

"Thought I told yeh teh shuddup an' walk!" snarled the orc just behind them. "C'mon, my liddle beauties, move it along. There's a wizard what wants teh see yeh. I wouldn't wanna be in yer shoes…"


	8. Orthanc

**CHAPTER SEVEN: Orthanc**

There are few things in this world – or any world, really – that are more unpleasant than the deep, clanging _boom_ of a door shutting you into some place you don't want to be.

One of those things is having this happen to you while you are bewildered, frightened, exhausted, covered in sticky black blood, and wearing the reeking garments of a monster that tried to kill you in what had formerly been your backyard.

Eicys was not having a good day.

She peered out at the world from beneath Murgash's old helmet, which covered her from the nape of her neck all the way to her eyebrows. The lower half of her face was covered by a thick layer of mud and oatmeal, and the rest of her body was covered by those bits of Murgash's clothing and armor that Eicys had been able to pull off his corpse before it was inhumed by a tree.

She had never felt more disgusting in her life. She trailed along just a little behind the gang of orcs, trying – unsuccessfully – to avoid any contact between her skin and her disguise, and keeping a careful eye on the curly copper supernova that was her sister's hair. It bobbed along just ahead… Eicys had to fight back a crazy impulse to dash forward, seize Cebu by the wrist, and run like mad. That wouldn't do anyone any good at all. She had to be patient. Patient and devious and invisible.

She edged along at the back of the group, now climbing the steps into Orthanc itself._ Invisible, invisible_, she repeated to herself.

"Oy, snaga!" a rough voice shouted at her. "Where d'yeh think yer goin'? Yer not allowed in the tower wivout a mark." The guard gestured at the White Hand painted on his helmet.

"But I have to – "

"Clear out," said the guard, "or I'll stick this spear fru yer neck an' hang yer head over the front gate."

The threat of a blade in the throat was far too close to recent events for Eicys' composure. She squeaked and stumbled back down the steps. But Cebu had hesitated in Orthanc's obsidian doorway, and now turned around. "Eicys?" she said disbelievingly, her eyes scanning the area and entirely missing her little sister.

"Cebu! Cebu, I – uh…" Eicys threw a glance at the suspicious-looking guard, and wisely shut her mouth. Pulling her helmet a little lower over her eyes, she watched the orcs herd Cebu into the tower with her friends, and then blundered back down the steps in a fog of disbelief and misery.

Now what?

**LCLCLCLCLC**

Once past the door-guards, the Immies were hustled into a bare stone room and made to sit on the floor. The orcs stood around in the corners, talking and laughing in their horrible language, and occasionally delivering a lewd or threatening comment in Common for the Immies' benefit. Dilly hunched up with her knees drawn into her chest, and glared at nothing. With every minute that passed, she grew more and more convinced that they were in deeper trouble than any of them knew how to get out of.

She wished Eredolyn would try to take things a bit more seriously, and also that she would stop staring at Elf and orcs alike with the same expression of pleased fascination. It seemed likely to elicit a rather violent reaction any minute now – and the orcs didn't like it much either.

These gloomy musings were interrupted by a sudden shriek, repeated banging noises, and cries of, "She's killed me! Th' filthy little strawhead – Get her away fr—" The yell cut off suddenly in a way that seemed ominous. It was replaced with more banging, then footsteps and a hoarse feminine voice, half-shouting, half-singing something indecipherable. The orcs exchanged unpleasant grins.

"Never knew why they don't jest kill that'n," said one. "Causes more trouble'n the rest of 'em combined." His companion shrugged. The sounds outside the room increased, with a deeper human voice mixed in, bawling furiously. It grew louder, and then the door opened with a bang, and a curious group burst through.

An orc was dragging a girl across the floor by her hair; she was twisting and fighting madly, and her blows landed on her captor's armor in a metallic cacophony. Behind the orc was a large and red-faced man, swearing violently and waving a roasting fork and landing the occasional kick. Just after him, another girl staggered in, whimpering, clutching her face and side: blood streamed from her nose and mouth, and she had two spectacular black eyes blooming across her face.

"…Here," the man panted, kicking the prone girl again: she snarled at him in – "I think that's Rohirric!" Eredolyn hissed gleefully. "She's from Rohan!" Eredolyn had an interest in the Mark that amounted almost to a fetish. And if blonde hair and stubborn defiance were the distinguishing features of an Eorling, this girl most definitely qualified.

"Y're goin' up t' see th' Master?" the sweating man asked one of the Immies' guards. It nodded. "Good – y' can take this horse-dung up with you, an' ask him if we're finally allowed t' kill her. I know we're short on drudges an' all, but all th' strawheads we catch are more trouble'n they're worth, an' this one's th' worst of th' lot."

The guards shrugged acquiescence, and the girl was kicked into the Immies' midst with a straightforward brutality that made even Eredolyn wince. She seemed about to say something, but Dilly elbowed her. The last thing they needed right now was heroics.

Unfortunately the Rohir didn't seem to agree. She rolled upright and lunged... and was kicked heavily in the stomach by an enormous orcish boot. She folded up noiselessly. Eredolyn glowered belligerently; even Tuima looked taken aback. The Immies scooted in around the girl, more appalled by the minute.

_She shouldn't even be able to walk!_ was Dilly's first thought. _She should be _dead_!_

The Eorling was skin and bones. They had all probably used that phrase many times without really thinking about it, but they had never seen anyone to whom it was truly applicable until now. The girl's joints looked huge and knobbly on the ends of her emaciated limbs. She was dressed in a shapeless woolen dress, and her pale hair was pulled back into a messy braid. Blood trickled gently from a line of scratches across her face. She smelled of sweat and dirt and malnutrition.

"Nh," said the girl, getting her breath back. It was startling how her face transformed: one minute she looked like the poster-child for a campaign against poverty/abuse/famine, and the next the Immies were unconsciously backing away. This girl didn't need _anyone_ feeling sorry for her. She'd take care of herself. Anyone who tried to mess with her would also be taken care of – probably with a knife.

"Hello," said Eredolyn. "What's your name?"

The Eorling stared. "Who are you?"

"Eredolyn," said Eredolyn. She was treated to a slow look, up and down, and apparently deemed non-threatening. "You're no Dunlending," the girl said shortly. "Where're you from?"

"Uhh…"

"Near Fangorn," said Dilly smoothly. "You?"

"The Westfold," she said, her voice clipped and rather strained. "Why are you dressed like that?"

The girls looked down at their jeans. "Practicality?" suggested Dilly.

"Huh." The Rohir plucked at her filthy smock. "Clever."

"Um, do you mind telling us what's going on? We don't really know what to expect..."

"Death, torture, or slavery, depending on how much you've annoyed him." Oblivious to the results this produced, the girl sucked absently at her bleeding knuckles, and grimaced with pain. "Ah, Bema," she swore softly. She took hold of one finger, set her teeth and screwed up her eyes.

"Stop," said Tuima abruptly. The girl looked up. "That's broken," Tuima said, pointing to her finger.

"I know. I'm putting it back in place."

"Valar above – Here, let me…"

"Hold on a minute – " the Rohir said sharply. "You – what are… You're one of the Firstborn! You're an _Elf!_"

"Thrilling, isn't it. Give me your hand."

The Eorling extended it warily. Tuima rubbed up and down the bones for a moment, feeling delicately for the break. There was a sudden, nasty popping noise. The girl gasped and yanked her hand back. "How did you do that? I didn't even see you…"

"Is there anything to splint it with?" Tuima asked serenely. A moment of consultation among the Immies produced a ballpoint pen from Eredolyn's pocket and a strip from Dilly's cuff. Tuima wrapped up the broken finger with cool professionalism.

"Thanks," said the Rohir at last, examining the ballpoint pen.

"Try not to punch anyone wearing armor again," was Tuima's only reply.

"Nah, I broke this hitting Drysi. But that's all right; I heard at least two of her ribs crack, so it's fair." She grinned a truly unpleasant grin.

The Immies exchanged glances of varying horror, bewilderment and excitement: Drysi was one of Saruman's servants in Coralie's unfinished story. "What did she do?" asked Eredolyn.

The girl's eyes flashed. "She's a spying, tale-bearing, snivelling little Dunlending wretch," she said.

"You _did_ say Drysi, right?" asked Eredolyn.

"Yes."

"So… just by way of, you know, experimentation… do you know of a Lady Coralie?"

"Of course," said the Rohir. "She's been in the dungeons for a while now."

"Ha!" cried Eredolyn. "I was right! We _are_ in a fanfic! We're in Lady Coralie's story! I knew this couldn't be the real Middle-earth. Things have been way too nice for us so far."

"Eredolyn," said Tuima, in a voice cold enough to explode the hearts of trees, "your friend Eicys is _dead_. Please explain to me how that constitutes _nice._"

"No," said Cebu: it was the first noise they'd heard from her yet. "Eicys is still alive. I heard her. Outside. She was calling me."

Tuima raised a skeptical eyebrow but said nothing. The rest of the time passed in silence – save for Eredolyn's attempts to get the Rohirric girl to talk about her homeland. But getting information out of the Rohir was about as easy as pulling a tooth from a crocodile; Eredolyn didn't manage to extract much beyond a name: Wulfrida-Limola Oloriel Raeda Eoricsdotter.

"Um," said Eredolyn, when the last syllables died away. "Do you have a nickname?"

Wulfrida-Limola Oloriel Raeda Eoricsdotter frowned and shook her head.

"What do your friends call you?" Eredolyn persisted.

The girl looked as though there was one basic assumption in that sentence that she didn't understand. Dilly reflected that a troublemaking Rohirric drudge would probably have a different definition of 'friend' from most people – probably something along the lines of 'an enemy I have not yet tried to kill.'

"Isn't there a short form of your name?" asked Eredolyn.

"I have been called Wilore by some of the lazier of tongue."

"That works," said Eredolyn, happily ignoring the 'lazy of tongue' bit. "Wilore it is. Oh, look, they're calling us in. Come on, guys! We get to see Saruman!" She bounced to her feet.

Wilore gave her a mistrustful look. "Is she mad?" she asked the Immies.

"No," said Dilly.

"Yes," said Tuima.

"She's just… a little bit overexcited," explained Cebu.

Eredolyn beamed at them. "What's not to be excited about? It'll be our first canon character! I wonder if he'll look like Christopher Lee…"

Dilly winced. Tuima rolled her eyes. Cebu looked concerned.

"She's mad," said Wilore flatly.

* * *

**A/N: **I just wanted to apologize to everyone for the weird repetition screwup in the last chapter. Thanks for pointing it out; all is fixed now! You guys are amazing. Seriously. Reviews are the fuel on which authors run... and they're a heckuvalot cheaper than the other kind of fuel. Urgh.

Save your pocketbooks! Review!

the Immies


	9. Unpleasantries

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

For to avoid confusion and eschew obsfication and otherwise pendantically clarify things:

There are a lot of characters here, all of them young and female. This can be a bit bewildering until you get to know said characters. For now, a quick summary, in order of appearance:

**Tuima** – an Elf. Cool, competent, and arrogant as nine cats.

**Dilly** – sarcastic, stubborn, and practical. Has long dark hair and a stoic expression.

**Eredolyn** – a fanatic. Short auburn hair and a great deal too much enthusiasm.

**Eicys** – Cebu's little sister. Brave, forthright, optimistic, and in this _waay_ over her head.

**Cebu** – cheerful, sympathetic, and just generally Nice. A fanatical Frodo Fancier with hair like an orange gone nova.

**Wilore – **A Rohirric girl with an unpronouncable name and a simmering – if not outright boiling – temper. Heck, the pot lid's probably leaving dents in the ceiling.

With that out of the way… on with the show!

* * *

Eicys, in the finest traditions of the lost and bewildered, followed the largest group of… people… into the nearest building. It was little more than an oversized shack, really – as inexpertly constructed as a kid's tree house, and as pungent as an uncleaned outhouse.

Apparently it was the mess hall. Orcs of various shapes and sizes packed the room, shouting, snarling, squabbling, and stuffing their faces. Eicys was ravenous, but the combination of noise and smell twisted her stomach, and a glimpse of the main course – a scummy sort of stew full of greyish lumps – soon had her backing out of the room with a hand over her mouth. No dinner tonight, then. She would find a secluded spot to sleep, and in the morning she'd wake up, safe and clean, in her own bed at home. Probably.

Maybe.

Please?

She wandered around, avoiding eye contact and trying to look as though she had important business wherever the orcs were not. It was difficult to make herself hurry; she'd been running around since nightfall, and it was past dawn. And Murgash's armor was _heavy_. She was almost ready to just drop down where she stood when she discovered a black stone pillar with a White Hand on top and a sort of hollow at its base. Eicys crammed her helmet a little further over her eyes and gave her smelly old jerkin a few tugs, making sure it hid her t-shirt. Then she curled up at the base of the pillar and was asleep even before her eyes had finished closing.

She was lucky. The others, drunk on a cocktail of exhaustion, dread, and disbelief, were currently standing in a rather pathetic huddle in front of the Istar Curunir, also known as Saruman the Wise. He was regarding them as any power-hungry deluded Maia might – that is to say, with utmost contempt, flavored with a dash of long-suffering and the merest smidgeon of hope that they wouldn't waste yet more of his precious time.

"Woah," Eredolyn murmured to no one in particular. "He looks even _better_ than Christopher Lee. Check out the Many Colors schpiel with the robes."

Saruman, who was indeed dressed in the opalescent garments described by Tolkien, narrowed his eyes at Eredolyn. She stared unabashedly back at him.

"I am told," said the wizard, "that one of you may be in posession of… Information." The capital _I_ was plainly audible in his deep voice. A shiver shook through the Immies: that voice was the vocal equivalent of solid gold – rich, smooth, polished, and cold. It could make mere soundwaves do tricks that were usually accomplished by exotic multi-point fonts and painstaking calligraphy.

Cebu's lips parted slightly; Eredolyn's eyes went round with awe and admiration. Wilore, who was being held in a headlock some distance away (it was the only way to make her stop attacking people) squirmed frantically and tried to cover her ears.

Tuima took a deep breath. "I'm afraid you were misinformed," she said.

"Really?" Saruman sounded amused. "I haven't even told you what kind of information I believe you to have."

"We wouldn't know anything that could be of use to you," said Tuima. "We're strangers in this area."

"So I see," said Saruman. "Such exotic clothing! These mortals must have come from far away indeed. And it is always unusual to meet an Elf – and a female at that – who dares show even a nose outside their precious sanctuaries." Tuima's expression curdled with suppressed fury. Saruman smiled. "No," he said, "I think you will prove very interesting indeed."

"We could have nothing to say that someone of your wisdom and experience does not already know," said Tuima, biting off the compliments as though they hurt her mouth.

"That is quite likely," said Saruman. "But perhaps_ I_ might have something to say that _you_ do not know?"

Tuima looked at him warily.

"You believe," said the wizard, "that a certain Object, currently in the posession of a Halfling and under the protection of my deluded colleague Mithrandir, is going to bring victory to the men of the West. But did you know that I have already dispatched an army to retrieve that Object? They met the Halfling's company near Amon Hen. Your hope has failed."

Tuima went very still. Her face had turned a pale, ashy grey.

Dilly folded her arms. "If that's true," she said, bluffing as only Dilly could bluff, "then what do you need us for?"

"Because the Uruk-Hai never came back," said Eredolyn, grinning. "The Rohirrim killed them, remember? I _love_ that scene."

"Hah!" cried Wilore, grinning fiercely. And then, when she saw Saruman's expression of baffled fury, she added a few gleeful – and from the tone, probably obscene – words in Rohirric. Saruman nodded curtly to an orc. "Kill her," he said.

The orc pulled out a dented blade. The Immies blanched. Eredolyn jerked forward slightly.

"No – wait," said Saruman to the orc. "That would defeat the purpose, really. She is quite anxious for an honorable death. Throw her in the dungeons instead."

Wilore froze.

The orc sheathed his sword and grabbed her arm.

And then Wilore _un_froze, rather explosively. "No!" she shrieked. "No, no, no!" She kicked sideways and back, like a horse, and struck the shin of the orc who had her in the headlock. He swore and loosened his grip enough for Wilore to wiggle free, whirl around, and –

-- have her arms forced behind her back by two more orcs, who began to haul her from the room. Wilore threw herself back and forth, kicking madly, screaming in Rohirric. "I won't go!" she yelled frantically, her face almost demented with panic. "I won't, I won't go!"

Her shrieks echoed down the corridor as three orcs finally managed to drag her off, still struggling like a madwoman.

Cebu made a little noise in the back of her throat, like a small animal caught in a trap. Dilly's Stoic expression had solidified to the point where her face might have been carved out of stone, but her eyes flickered back and forth frantically, looking for a way out.

There wasn't one, of course. There were at least two orcs for each girl, and Dilly was cynica – _practical_ enough to doubt that so many guards were actually even necessary. Sure, Ere was a black belt in karate, and Tuima had seemed moderately competent with a knife – back when she _had_ a knife – but these orcs had armor. And swords.

As though reading her mind, Saruman leant forward in his black stone chair, smiling very slightly. It was the look a cat might give an arthritic mouse found nibbling on the contents of a bowl marked _Kitty_.

…Yeah, the Immies were in it knee-deep, now.

**LCLCLCLCLCLC**

"Wake up, you." The grating voice was accompanied by a sharp jab to the ribs. Eicys opened her eyes.

Through the ensuing crush of shock and panic, some small detached bit of her struggled to reassert sanity: this was obviously a dream, it told her. Or rather, a nightmare. There was no way a face that horrible could exist in real life.

The monster prodded her again. Nope, not dreaming. _Oh no oh no ohnonono… _She struggled to her feet, pressing her back hard into the safety of the pillar.

"What're y' doin' ou' here?" the orc demanded of her. He was _huge_, the biggest uruk she'd ever seen. He must have been eight feet tall.

"Uh…" said Eicys, her brain grinding frantically into the appropriate gear. "Sleeping." She cursed inwardly; her mental throttle seemed to have gotten stuck on 'Park'.

"Yeah…" he growled, slowly and deliberately. He left the end of the word wide open: _Why?_

Another gear clonked into place in the whirring, panicking chaos of Eicys' mind. "It's quieter out here," she said.

His eyebrows went up. Eicys stared. Her thought processes obviously still very much under par, she blurted out, "Hey – Your eyes don't match!" They didn't. They were perfectly normal brown eyes, and therefore looked bizarrely out of place in his brutal face.

"Really?" he snarled. He seized her collar, and Eicys, with a throb of terror, felt her feet leave the ground. "Is tha' a prob–" He stopped. "You don' smell righ'," he said suspiciously.

Eicys froze. She looked up into his face, blue eyes wide with horror. The uruk's eyes widened as well, and he dropped her abruptly: Eicys fell flat, clumsy with unwieldy armor. The orc waited for her to look up at him again, his massive arms folded across his chest.

"Your eyes don' match, either," he said.

A frantic Eicys took her cue from his earlier reaction. "So?" she snapped.

He gave her a shrewd look. Eicys felt almost annoyed: orcs were supposed to be _stupid!_ But the uruk just drummed his claws on his scimitar hilt, grimaced to himself – Eicys shivered at the glint of fangs – and, miracle of miracles, waved her back towards the tower. "An' y'll be sleepin' in th' barracks wi' th' res' of 'em from now on, got it?" he called as she fled.

It was barely noon, but Eicys didn't think she'd be able to go back to sleep, even if she found the barracks. _Especially_ if she found the barracks, come to think of it. What she needed was a plan.

No, what she needed was a White Hand marking. Then she could get into the tower and make a better plan.

Scratch that, too. What she _really_ needed was breakfast. The mess hall was definitely out, as far as she was concerned. So that left… the tower.

Back to square one. How to get one of those symbols?

_Hmm… _

Eicys grinned. Maybe she _would_ head over to the barracks after all…


	10. It Gets Worse

**CHAPTER NINE**

It was almost ridiculous, really, how easy it all was. Eicys slipped into the barracks, which – as it was still the middle of the day – were full of snoring, slumbering orcs. She snuck down the stinking, noisy rows until she found a mottled maroon-colored goblin with a White Handprint on the helmet that hung beside his bed.

Then she stole the helmet, replaced it with her own, and snuck out again.

Ta-da! And this helmet even had a nose guard, hiding that much more of her face. Eicys felt very proud of herself as she marched up the steps of Orthanc and swaggered past the doorguard, who did not offer a single comment.

The feeling wore off once she found herself in an echoing obsidian maze, as shiny, black, and unpleasant as a rat's eyeball. She headed down one hallway, then another, then backtracked and tried a third. After half an hour of staircases, echoing empty rooms, and long, deserted corridors, Eicys began to get seriously annoyed. She'd already _done_ all the difficult daring bits. She didn't expect a "This Way to the Dungeons" sign or anything, but… didn't they have any consideration for visitors around here? How were you supposed to find _anything_ in this crazy tower?

At last a jumble of voices came to her attention, and she headed eagerly toward it. She peered through an open doorway into what looked like – Eicys sent up a prayer of thanks – a kitchen.

"Hey, snaga!" someone shouted. "Where've y' been? Get movin'!"

"Um. What?"

The someone, who turned out to be a large, red-faced man brandishing a roasting fork like it was Anduril itself, thrust a bucket into each of Eicys' hands and shoved her towards the door again.

"But – " said Eicys.

"But wha'?" asked the man, jabbing his fork at her breastplate. "You get this medicine down t' those warg pens righ' now or – "

Eicys didn't wait to hear the threat. It probably wasn't going to be very original, anyway. She hurried out of the room.

Back in the black, barren hallway, she looked down at the buckets in her hands – they were full of some foul-smelling oily liquid – and looked around her, and tried to figure out what in the world she ought to do next.

But to be honest, there weren't a lot of options. She just had to start walking, and hope she found… something. Anything, really. This whole echoing-darkness thing was getting pretty old.

Twenty minutes later, it had gotten older still.

_Use your head, Eicys. You were pretty high up according to the last window. You have to get back to ground level. So all you're _really_ looking for is a staircase._

That simplified things. It only took five minutes more to find one of Orthanc's narrow stone staircases. It was, of course, black. And shiny. Eicys didn't care; she skittered down the stairs with the buckets held out to her sides, concentrating fiercely to offset her armor-skewed equilibrium.

That was why she didn't see the uruk until it was too late.

**LCLCLCLCLCLCLC**

Eicys' sister Cebu was having a much less exciting morning. Mostly it consisted of sitting in a cell, staring into the darkness, and feeling generally horrid.

She was bruised. She was tired. She was scared, and cold, and hungry. And her sister was…

No. She was not going to think about Eicys. Or Eredolyn. Cebu couldn't _believe_ her friend would actually –

No!

Life pretty much sucked.

But the redhead was determined not to dwell on it. Cebu had a personality that perfectly matched her hair – cheerful, bright, and bouncy. Granted, her hair was currently full of mud and leaves, and – as stated above – her life right now was not exactly something that inspired bright bouncy cheer. But she was determined to make the best of things until she woke up.

Then, even though she was confident she would find herself in her nice clean safe bedroom, she was going to take a long, hot bath and lock herself inside with a book (which would _not _be"The Lord of the Rings").

Cheered slightly by this thought, she dug around in her pocket until she found what had been poking her all this time. It turned out to be the spoon from her daily bowl of gruel. She blinked at it, bemused. Was it really only a day ago that her sister had locked her in the closet? So much had happened since then. She would happily trade every foot of Isengard for that cramped little closet.

She tapped the spoon against her bars, and was rewarded with a clear metallic _donngg!_

Hm.

She wrapped her fingers around the bar about a third of the way down, and struck the lower half.

_Dinng!_

Ah-ha.

A few minutes later, Cebu was performing an enthusiastic xylophone-esque musical number on the bars of her cell. She wore a rather vicious expression as she filled the cramped, pitchy-dark room with the sounds of, ironically, _Jingle Bells_. But she hit the climactic chord a little too hard, and the spoon bounced out of her fingers and flew toward the back of the cell.

"Ouch!"

Cebu froze. "Is someone there?" she asked. She was _sure_ no one had been in the room when they threw her in.

"Me, of course."

"Are you… the spoon?" asked Cebu. In her defense, it had been a long, terrifying, and sleepless night, and talking spoons would frankly be among the less surprising things she'd come across in the course of it.

"I beg your pardon?" said the voice indignantly.

"It's all yours," said Cebu, in a monotone. "My pardon, I mean. Um. I think I've gone insane."

"Ah." There was a rustle in the corner where she'd thrown the spoon. "I wondered, what with the _Jingle Bells_ and so forth. It was very… ah, energetic."

"Sorry," said Cebu numbly. She imagined it wouldn't be very pleasant to be a drumstick.

Drumspoon.

Whatever.

"No, no, quite all right," said the spoon. "One grows used to these spontaneous bursts of creativity. It's all part of the job description."

Cebu peered into the corner where the spoon ought to be. It was almost completely black, but she could see something moving… "You're not a spoon!" she cried.

"Of course not," said the woman with a touch of aspersion. "I am a _Muse_. My name is Euterpe."

A slightly stunned silence followed this pronouncement, during which Euterpe picked up the dropped spoon and smiled at her bewildered cellmate.

"I'm Cebu," Cebu managed at last.

"Charmed," said Euterpe politely.

"Terrified," Cebu responded in the same tone.

"What?"

"I really _have_ gone insane. You just told me you were the Muse oflyric poetry."

"Of course I did."

"But you're supposed to be in _Greece!_ Mythological Greece! This is Middle-earth!" Cebu said indignantly.

"No, it isn't."

"Yes, it is. Note: dungeon. Orcs. Evil wizard named Saruman. Leaves from Fangorn Forest still stuck in my hair. _Middle-earth_." Cebu knew she wasn't being exactly polite, but she was still numb with fright over Eicys' fate, and bruised and aching in places she was only just discovering. Being insane was just the cherry on top of the little chocolate cake of misery that was her life right now.

She _really_ wanted a bath.

"This is not Tolkien's Middle-Earth," the Muse insisted. "It is a spin-off, belonging to a writer named Lady Coralie."

"Yes it – _what?_" Cebu said, completely thrown.

"It is a spin-off, belonging to –"

"No, I heard you. But… but…" Cebu tried to pull herself together. "Coralie didn't put any muses in her story!"

"No, but she is in need of muses nonetheless. She never finished her tale."

"No kidding," Cebu muttered.

"So my eight sisters and I," said Erato, waving Cebu's dropped spoon like a scepter, "patrons of artists, writers, and musicians, the divine daughters of aegis-bearing Zeus, have come to inspire her, so that the story canon may proceed and the Third Age come to an end, and that a vast multitude of her readers may at last have peace."

"Oh," said Cebu. There was a long pause. "…Um, can I have my spoon back now?"

**LCLCLCLCLCLCLC**

Eredolyn was having an altogether different sort of morning. She was fast asleep in a four-poster bed, with a silk coverlet drawn up under her chin and an enormous leather book cuddled against her chest.

To explain this rather bizarre state of affairs, it is necessary to go back several hours, to the time when Eicys was busy being grossed out by the orcish mess hall. At that time, Eredolyn, Dilly, Tuima, and Cebu were all standing in a small, nervous knot in front of Saruman the Many-Coloured, nee The White, and listening to the sounds of Wilore's screams fade into the distance.

This is not the sort of situation likely to make anyone's list of Most Cherished Memories. Even Eredolyn was beginning to feel slightly apprehensive.

"…And now," said the wizard, leaning forward very slightly, "that that unfortunate business is out of the way, we can… talk. I am _most _interested in how you knew about the defeat of the uruk-hai." His dark eyes found Eredolyn, searing her skin like an icepack against a fever-flushed face. It was unpleasant, horribly unpleasant – but even so…

Eredolyn took a deep, shuddery breath.

"You must be very clever indeed," Saruman purred – and it _was_ a purr, throaty and low. "I am sure we two could find a great deal to talk about."

"She's not interested," snapped Dilly, kicking her friend's ankle. She was relieved to see Eredolyn's eyes snap back into focus.

"Nope," Eredolyn echoed uncertainly. "Definitely not."

"You are certain?" the wizard asked. "One so well-informed as you are should be aware of the advantages of… cooperation."

But his thrust went astray. "Is that a threat?" Eredolyn asked belligerently.

"I am not a monster," Saruman objected, "whatever you may think of me. I strive only for safety and certainty in a troubled world. Too much has been lost already."

"Yeah," said Eredolyn, "like loyalty and principles and your position at the head of the Istari."

"Eredolyn," Dilly hissed, "shut up!"

Eredolyn, her hazel eyes locked with Saruman's smoldering black ones, felt an unfamiliar twinge of irritation with her friend. She was holding her own here! How often do you get the chance to throw a witty insult in the face of one of the most verbally devious villains in all of literature?

Saruman looked away. As those intense dark eyes dropped to the floor, he seemed to shrink – dwindle away to an old man, bent and weary.

"The Valar sent me to guide Middle-earth," he said. "I can do only what I think is right. If my choices anger those who should have been my fellows, then so it must be."

Eredolyn hesitated, mouth open. She'd never heard anyone sound so…

At her side, Cebu covered her mouth, blue eyes round and soft with empathy. But Cebu would take pity on an axe murderer in distress. _Verbally devious!_ Eredolyn reminded herself. "No way are we falling for that," she said, her voice as hard as she could make it through a fog of guilt and sympathy. "You _betrayed_ those who should have been your fellows."

Saruman winced. "Yes," he said, his voice low. "That is how they would see it."

That was the last thing Eredolyn had ever expected to hear. She stared at the wizard. "…Well, then, why did you do it?" she asked.

"Sometimes," said Saruman, "it is pointless to fight any more." At Eredolyn's side, Tuima drew in a sharp, hissing breath, and her fingers curled into fists. No one paid her any attention: all eyes were riveted on the wizard. "There are some forces too great to resist," he said. "So much has been lost; there is so much that has been forgotten. Sauron will crush all of it into oblivion, and then Middle-earth will be truly lost, and my purpose here will go unfulfilled. But by joining with him, I can keep my domain free and safe: a haven. A reed survives the storm more easily than a stubborn oak."

"So you're doing all this as a… a front?" Eredolyn asked. Her tone did not sound quite as skeptical as she would have liked.

"You seem to know a great deal about my affairs already. Do you honestly believe I would seek out the Ring of Power only to hand it over to _Sauron_?"

Eredolyn's head felt thick and slow, as though it had been stuffed with damp cotton. But she knew the answer to that one. "No," she said, shaking her head. "You would keep it."

"I would keep it _safe_," Saruman pressed, his eyes boring into hers, his voice trembling with earnestness.

"Safe?" Eredolyn repeated dazedly.

"I desire only what is best for Middle-earth," said the wizard. "Though my methods may seem harsh, still I use them only to serve the right."

"Don't listen," Tuima said thickly, and Eredolyn jumped: she had forgotten there was anyone else in the room. "He killed Eicys. He killed the Ringbearer. He's a traitor."

"Eicys isn't dead," Eredolyn insisted. "Cebu said she heard her calling. And Frodo isn't dead, either. All the hobbits are just fine. You should read the book."

"What book is that?" Saruman asked.

"Nothing you would find interesting," Dilly snapped, elbowing her friend in the ribs. Eredolyn moved away, looking annoyed.

"I am interested in most things," said Saruman, his attention now fixed entirely on Eredolyn. "You enjoy reading, then?" he asked. "That is an unusual interest for a beautiful young woman."

Eredolyn blinked uncertainly. "I'm not beautiful," she said, and then shook her head, trying to clear it. "—I mean, um, yes. I like to read." Her face was flushed – which did, in fact, make her look remarkably pretty. You could almost overlook the blood in her hair and the glassiness in her eyes. She was finding it difficult to think straight: that rich, rolling voice filled her head, echoing back and forth like ocean waves, smoothing down her worries and suspicions.

"I imagine you would enjoy my library, then," he said. "Especially if you like the tales of Rohan."

"Thanks," said Dilly sharply, "but no thanks." She lowered her voice and hissed, "Snap out of it, Ere!"

Eredolyn's fingers twisted uneasily, and she bit her lip. "I…"

"Only recently I acquired a new ballad about the exploits of Helm Hammerhand," said the wizard. "I am currently engaged in translating it to the Common Tongue."

_This_ thrust was dead center. "Helm Hammerhand?" Eredolyn repeated almost reverently.

"You know of him?"

"I _love_ his story," said Eredolyn, falling headlong into the echoing sea in her head.

"Then perhaps you could help me," said the wizard. "There are a few passages that are giving me difficulty; a fresh mind would be just the thing."

"Oh, but – I don't speak Rohirric."

"Nonsense," said Saruman, waving a hand. "I am an excellent teacher. If you apply yourself, I see no reason you should not be able to translate the ballad yourself in a month or two."

Eredolyn glowed. "Really?" she breathed.

"Of course, you would have to read several other ballads and poems, to acquaint yourself with the literary style," said Saruman, a bit uncertainly. "I would not wish to impose upon – "

"I would _love_ to!" Eredolyn cried. Dilly covered her eyes. _Hook, line, and sinker,_ said the pose.

The wizard beamed. "Wonderful!" he said. "I will have you all shown to your rooms. Jarzul!"

Dilly looked around sharply. "Hold on just one minute – " she began angrily. Tuima cut her off. "We appreciate your offer of hospitality, sir," she said, with a stiff little bow, "but we find ourselves unable to accept. We have pressing business – "

"Oh, no," said Saruman, his eyes glittering like chips of mica. "_I insist._" He leaned over and whispered something to the Dunlending servant who had appeared at his side. The man nodded, approached Eredolyn, and bowed clumsily. "If y'll follow me, Lady?" he asked.

Eredolyn smiled. "I'll see you guys later!" she called over her shoulder as she followed Jarzul from the room. The Immies stared after her.

_Boom_. The doors thundered shut on Eredolyn's heels, cutting her off from her friends as effectively as a knife. Dilly flinched. Cebu's eyes were round and dark with worry. "She – she looked… different," she ventured. "Her eyes were all…" She shivered.

Tuima looked Saruman straight in the eye. "Now that your audience is gone," she said, "you can drop the charade. _We_ won't fall for your tricks so easily."

The wizard laughed lightly. "Presumptions of the ignorant," he said. "If I bent my will to any one of you for a few hours, I could have you convinced that I am Elbereth in mortal guise and Sauron is a small purple spider." Cebu shuddered. "But you are not worth the effort." He nodded to the orcish guards. "They are all yours," he said. "I don't want to see them again."

The three prisoners gasped and drew together. Tuima groped uselessly for the knives she no longer wore. Dilly whirled on Saruman. "You're going to have your work cut out for you explaining this to Eredolyn!" she shouted at the wizard as the orcs advanced on them.

"Wait," Saruman told his guards thoughtfully.

Dilly seized the advantage: "We're her best friends. She's going to want to talk to us. A lot. And you may have her eating out of your hand right now but she's definitely not stupid."

Saruman smiled. "Nor are you, I see," he said. "That was quick thinking; very quick indeed." He sat back lazily in his obsidian throne, lounging as though it were an easy chair. "Very well," he said. "It certainly doesn't matter to me whether you live or die. And who knows? You may come in useful once your friend has been thoroughly wrung out." His eyes gleamed. "Perhaps then you will wish I _had_ killed you. Guards! Take them down to the dungeon. _Unharmed_."

The orcs wilted in disappointment. "Do we hafta?" one of them whined. "Jest lookit how soft an' scared…"

Saruman's long white hands tightened on the arms of his throne. "You dare to question me?" he asked, his voice soft and menacing.

"No – no, milord."

"Be glad," said Saruman, "that I do not give _you_ to your companions for their sport in the prisoners' place."

"Yes milord," squeaked the orc.

"Now go," said Saruman. "I have other matters to attend to."

The wizard leaned forward to watch the three prisoners being dragged struggling from the room. "Don't worry," he told them, "your stay will not last long. I expect your friend's mind to be completely broken by the end of the week – though perhaps I will draw it out longer, for entertainment purposes." He smiled at Cebu's expression. "Farewell!" he called.

The doors to the audience chamber slammed shut in the Immies' faces. Saruman smiled.

This was going to be fun.

* * *

Thank you guys a thousand times over for your wonderful reviews -- and several thousand times over to Laer and The Wineglass. You've been so encouraging; we couldn't do this without you!


	11. Eicys Makes a Friend

**CHAPTER TEN**

On the third-to-last stair, much too late to stop herself, Eicys glanced up and found her field of vision completely blocked by a scarred metal breastplate. She locked her knees in a frantic effort to brake, overbalanced, and toppled down the remaining two steps to crash face-first into a veritable mountain of muscle, claws, and steel. It was the same uruk who'd awoken her that morning.

Eicys made a noise best recorded as "eep!" She staggered backwards and fell hard, spilling most of the medicine that hadn't already sloshed all over the uruk. He looked down at himself irritably, and started towards Eicys. She threw an arm over her head to ward off the blow – sending what remained of the slop straight into his face.

There was a dead silence as the creature grimly wiped sludge from his eyes and reached down a hand yet again.

And pulled her to her feet.

Eicys blinked. "Um," she said, hastily smearing medicine off her front. "Um, sorry – I'm sorry. I didn't mean to – I… Um… You're not mad?"

He shrugged, tasted some of the goop, and spat it out again immediately. "Morgoth – tha's worse'n th' sludge they serve up in th' mess hall." He spat again, lips peeling back from crooked fangs in disgust. "What is it?"

"It was for the wargs," Eicys said faintly.

"They put _you_ in th' warg pens?" he asked, eyes narrowing. With nothing else to do, Eicys nodded. "Huh," grunted the orc, and shrugged again, looking uncomfortable.

Eicys wasn't paying him a lot of attention, though – glad as she was to discover she was going to stay in one piece after _that_ little fiasco, she'd lost the medicine she was supposed to be delivering. "The cook is gonna kill me," she mumbled aloud as she surveyed the mess.

"Yeah, probably," he agreed.

Eicys realized he was completely serious. She bit back a moan.

"But even if he doesn'," the uruk added, "y' won' las' long in th' pens. Y're too little. Tha's practic'ly a death sentence."

"Oh," said Eicys.

After a long pause, the uruk asked, "Aren' y' goin' t' say anythin'?"

"Thank you," said Eicys hollowly. She gathered up the empty buckets. "I'd better go," she said.

"Stop," he said. Eicys looked up. "Give me those," said the orc, and grabbed both buckets out of her hands. "C'mon."

With no other choice, Eicys followed. To her great annoyance, they reached the exit in less than two minutes. To her greater annoyance, they kept going right on past it.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Th' dungeon guards change shifts righ' abou' now," he said, nodding at a descending staircase. "If we catch one, you c'n – hey! You!"

An orc was coming up the staircase toward them. Eicys' companion darted forward and grabbed it by the collar. "Don' give me tha' innocen' look," he snarled. "I know it was you."

"It wasn't!" the orc blurted reflexively. "I didn't do it!"

Something gleamed in the big uruk's eye: an emotion that was not triumph, amusement, or disgust, but had decided elements of all three. "Yeah, y' did," he countered. "I know all abou' it."

The smaller orc shrank back, nervously licking its thin black lips. "How?"

"Are y' interrogatin' me," asked the uruk, "or beggin' for y'r life? 'S y'r choice, 'f course."

The orc stared at him. The giant rubbed a thumb up and down the hilt of his scimitar, wearing an expression that would make a shark look like the winner of the Most Charming Smile Award.

"Whaddayawant?" the orc muttered at last.

"Y're a dungeon guard, righ'?"

"Yeah…?"

"Y're workin' in th' warg pens from now on." And without further ado, the uruk plucked the spear from the erstwhile guard's grip and dumped both buckets into his arms. "Go ask th' cook for another batch 'f medicine."

"Wha – but – "

The uruk folded his arms, tipped his head to one side, and said nothing. In the most threatening way possible.

"Yeah," the orc mumbled, staring at the heavy cords of muscle in his adversary's arms. "…Yeah. Right. Wargs. Uh – so ya won't mention…?"

"Get goin'!"

The orc fled, clutching both buckets to his chest.

Eicys cleared her throat nervously. "What… what did he do?" she asked.

"I haven' got th' faintest idea," said the uruk.

He quirked a bitter half-smile at Eicys' expression. "Th' thing abou' orcs," he explained, "is tha' they've always done _something_ they don' want y' rattin' them ou' for. I haven' found one yet who hadn'."

"Oh," said Eicys, bemused. "Well. Um, thank you."

He paused, and looked at her in suspicion and surprise. "…Yeah," he said. "I mean – Here's y'r spear. Y're a dungeon guard now, righ'?" Eicys nodded obediently, dazed by her sudden good fortune.

"An' y' owe me a favor," the uruk added, the way someone might tack on a meaningless social nicety like "please," or "my, this roast is really excellent, Mrs. Barlowe."

Eicys nodded again. It was suddenly dawning on her that everything was working out _perfectly_. She wanted to hug somebody – but since the big uruk was the only person around, that wasn't really an option. She beamed up at him instead, and clutched the spear against her chest. "Thank you," she said. "This is _great_."

"Er," he said, looking more surprised and suspicious than ever. "Yeah." He stared at her intently, as though waiting for some kind of sign. Eicys abruptly remembered his earlier comment about her eyes, and drew back in alarm.

Just then, there was a deep, hollow _thump_, and then three more rapid beats.

"Food's up," said the uruk, as the drum sounded again. "C'mon, or we won' get any."

Eicys did not point out that this was perfectly all right by her – partly because she _was_ trying to blend in here, and partly because her stomach was by now so empty she felt like it was trying to strangle her spine. Maybe she would find something to choke down, if they got there fast enough. So she crammed her helmet a little further over her eyes and hurried after the uruk, her armor clanking as she ran.

"Slow down – wait for me."

"Can't y' go any faster?"

"Hey, we can't all be eight feet tall," said Eicys. "Be nice to us vertically challenged folk."

He raised his eyebrows. "Vertically challenged?"

"Well, what do _you_ call someone too short to keep up?"

"Hungry," he said, picking up the pace again.

Eicys grumbled to herself but sped up, too, only stopping when they hit the scrum around the door to the mess hall. Orcs jostled, shoved, and shouted. Once or twice someone screamed. Eicys stared at the press of foul, stinking, heavily-armed bodies, and took a long step backwards.

"C'mon," said the big uruk, waving an arm. She tipped up her head to look at him nervously, and was surprised to see him draw back. Making eye contact was obviously not a valuable social skill among orcs. But he kept _staring_ at her, with a kind of puzzled, irritated expectancy. All he said, though, was: "Jus' stick close behind me an' y'll be fine."

Eicys scooted hesitantly closer. The uruk nodded, turned, and plunged into the crowd. It parted hastily in front of him: for an eight-foot-tall uruk, traffic congestion was something that happens to _other_ people. Eicys, almost stepping on his heels, managed to tag along in his wake with a minimal amount of jostling. Safely inside the mess hall, she turned and grinned at him. "Thanks," she said.

The uruk grimaced, waving his hands in the sign universally recognized as _shut up!_ Eicys blinked, taken aback.

"Hey, hey, hey!" said a gravelly voice. "Lookit yew playin' nursemaid! Isn't that sweet, boys?"

The mess hall erupted in raucous laughter. The uruk's face set into a stiff stone mask.

"…Oh," said Eicys apologetically.

The first orc spat. "Proper liddle whiner yew've picked up there. Hand an' Eye, yer as useless as they come. Still can't figure out why the master didn't get rid of yew, _ungrath._"

There was the faintest shadow of a wince from the massive uruk at Eicys' side; he looked down at her as though expecting some sort of reaction. But she was busy bracing herself: from the tone of the orc's voice, that last word had been an insult about as deadly as they come, and she was wondering at what point things were going to get ugly.

…Uglier.

But he only growled, "Ah, shove it, Sorbak," in a tone more resigned than threatening. That was ridiculous, in her opinion: he topped every other orc – even the uruk-hai – by six inches at least. But he just shoved his way through the crowd to the front of the room, Eicys close behind, while insults bounced off his thick hide with renewed vigor, half in the Black Speech and half in a mutilated Common that was almost worse. As her companion filled two plates with a grotesque greyish slop and shoved one in her direction, the insults grew steadily more creative and obscene. Eicys tried desperately not to listen, but orcish shouts can be… penetrating.

One word stood out – that first insult in the Black Speech, _ungrath_. It made an appearance in nearly every comment, and every time it was thick with irony and malice, and every time Eicys' companion would jerk a little, his face blank and hard. The other orcs were almost howling at this point, and a few of them had begun throwing things. There would be a brawl any minute now. Why didn't he just –

_Wham_.

Eicys' companion had an orc by the throat. The rest of the barracks slowly settled back, smiling eagerly. Weapons that had been half-drawn at the uruk's sudden movement slid back into their sheaths.

"Evenin'," said the giant pleasantly – for him. "Wha's your name?"

The orc gurgled.

"Huh. Tha's almos' worse'n mine. Y' know my name, snaga?"

He opened his fist a little, enough for the orc to wheeze out, "'gra…"

"Tha's righ'. An' y' know wha' Sharkey was experimentin' _for_?" With terrifying ease, the uruk swung the smaller orc out at arm's length, so that its feet were kicking the air two feet above the ground. It clawed at his wrist and gasped for air. He regarded it a moment, his face clouding over with weariness and disgust, and then dropped it. Disappointment rippled through the crowd. The big uruk turned on his heel and slammed out of the room.

Eicys was left all alone in the middle of the hall, clutching her plate. The semi-strangled orc wheezed pathetically at her.

"No kidding," she muttered, and edged unobtrusively for the door.

**LCLCLCLCLC**

Taras was pacing.

Four steps, turn. Four steps, turn. Four steps, turn. Four steps...

His progress was marked by nothing but the faint clink of chains. Taras hadn't taken off his boots since the morning he'd discovered an enterprising rat chewing its way through the left one, and by now they were so worn down that even stamping his feet produced next to no sound.

_Four steps, turn. _

The guard would be changing again soon. That meant sound, voices. And there would be light – twenty-eight seconds of it. If it was the guard with the crooked leg, there would be thirty-five.

_Four steps, turn_.

The second bar was almost ready to come out. He'd need the light to see exactly where to pull, how to heave the iron free without leaving any telltale marks on the frame.

_Four steps, turn. _The rasp of metal on stone, the shuffle of straw, the feel of the icy, uneven floor under his feet._ Four steps, turn. _

Four steps right to left and left to right. Four steps front to back – but slightly shorter steps, because even though the cell was square, Taras never went close to the front wall unless he had to. He hated the tug of the manacle against his wrist even more than he hated anything else about this place.

They'd chained both wrists to the wall at one point – so tightly that when he sat down his hands hung awkwardly above his head. But he couldn't reach the food they threw in, and none of the orcs dared enter the cell to bring it closer; and since Saruman insisted that Taras remain alive, a whole gang of the foul things had been shoved into his cell one day to add more links to his chains. Starving or not, chained or not, he'd managed to break two knees and a neck before someone had the sense to club him sharply over the head.

Taras found out later that the sensible someone had been executed for taking such a risk with a valuable prisoner.

_Four steps, turn._ The chain scraped faintly along the floor.

He had woken up with a raging headache, a broken toe from the knee-snapping trick, and two chains that were long enough for him to reach his cell door – barely.

_Four steps, turn…_

They'd compensated for the added freedom by fitting his legs with manacles as well. Taras had compensated for the loss of freedom by spending two solid months scraping a single chain link against the floor until it gave way. Now his left wrist was the only one chained. Two months on that, another seven or so on the bars, and…

_Four steps…_

It would be difficult to get out with his legs chained together. He couldn't run very well. But he intended to do a lot more fighting than running, anyway. He wished – he longed, prayed, begged the Valar – to escape Isengard altogether… to see Dol Amroth again… to run a sword through that –

Taras stopped pacing abruptly, gritting his teeth in an effort to stop that train of thought. He wasn't going to get out, he wasn't going to see his family, he would never have revenge – or even justice. He would die here, in Isengard.

But he was going to take as many of these Morgoth-spawned vermin with him as he could.

A muffled yell snapped him out of his reverie, and he froze, one foot still in the air. That was no orc – that was a human, a woman. His foot slammed into the ground – _three_ – and he darted to the barred window set into his door, ignoring the twist of pain from his shackled arm. It was dark as Sauron's heart except for a faint red-grey smudge at the far end of the hallway. Sound travelled much better than light in the black stone caverns beneath Orthanc.

The shouting resolved itself into words – very uncomplimentary words. The orcs were cursing, and someone was screaming in Rohirric. Her voice was raw with fear and fury, and it was punctuated by thumps, clatters, and shouts of orcish rage. Taras' fist closed around his length of broken chain. It was probably another Rohirric drudge, kidnapped and enslaved and eventually discarded. The last one had gone mad after only a few weeks, and had screamed for three days together – a faint, harsh noise that filtered through the halls and echoed relentlessly in Taras' head until it was abruptly cut off. He assumed a guard had lost its temper and been inadvertently merciful.

As girl's shrieks faded away, Taras leaned his head against the door and closed his eyes, pointlessly.

Everything was pointless. His world was sixteen paces square, dark as the depths of Mirkwood, unchanging except for the occasional sickening reminder of his own uselessness.

_Don't worry_, said Maenadan in his head. _I've taken care of everything. You'll always be useful to me._

"Shut up," said Taras, and jumped at the sound of his own voice. Valar, he was losing it. He needed to do something: work on the loose bar, wear down the link on his chain, go through a few sword drills.

He ran an absent hand through his hair and went back to pacing, his head full of far-off screams and the voice of the man who had put him here.

Four steps, stop, turn.

Four steps, stop, turn.

Four steps…


	12. Dilly Below Stairs

**CHAPTER ELEVEN**

**Our Characters, in order of appearance: **

**Dilly:** Probably the bravest of the Immies, Dilly is stubborn, stoic, and sarcastic. She wears her hair in a thick dark braid down to her hips, and exudes _don't mess with me _vibes the way some girls exude pheromones. Oddly, the two produce very similar results.

**Eredolyn**: Her cropped auburn head contains a dangerous – if not outright lethal – combination of cleverness, curiosity and enthusiasm that would make Gandalf's fireworks displays look dull. Being a devoted Tolkien fanatic with an orc-induced concussion does not help matters.

**Eicys**: Every trait from empathy to optimism to golden good looks conspires to make her stay among Isengard's orcs as soul-suckingly awful as possible.

**DILLY**

Dilly walked meekly between her orcish guards, head down and hands clasped. To anyone who knew anything about Dilly, this was as good as a flashing neon _Warning!_ sign. The orcs, however, did not know anything about Dilly, which is why they were surprised when she kicked one of them in the shins, punched the other in the nose, and took off running.

She pelted down a long black hallway, skidded around a corner, and dashed down yet another long black hallway. At the end, another hallway presented itself. It was long, and black.

The trend was broken by a staircase, leading down. Unfortunately it was not much of a trend breaker, also being long and black. But Dilly, pursued by shouting, furious orcs, was not in a mood to be picky. She plunged down the staircase, only to find herself facing a veritable maze of passageways. The author will not bother to describe them; an astute reader will have picked up the pattern by now. Dilly picked one at random and hurtled down it, hoping to lose her pursuers in the darkness.

No good. They'd grabbed a torch from one of the wall brackets, and were catching up to her fast. The dim torchlight from behind illuminated only a tiny bit of the corridor before her feet, but slowing down was definitely not an option. She put her head down and sprinted for all she was worth, sliding around corners and jinking around cell blocks until she was as lost as if she'd been dumped on the moon. And still the orcs followed.

Then, just ahead, she heard a _clink_ and a muffled choking noise. A voice, hoarse and incredulous, called out, "Lothiriel?"

Dilly swung to a halt in front of a heavily barred cell. There was a hand gripping one bar; the face behind it was lost in the blackness.

"_Lothiriel!"_

"How do I get out of here?" Dilly demanded. "How do I get out?"

The man in the cell spoke so fast that the syllables blurred together: "Turn left at the end of the hall, third right after that, up the stairs and – look out!"

Dilly dodged a swipe from a bloody-nosed guard, whirled around to run, and crashed headlong into the second orc. He grabbed her arm and twisted it painfully behind her back. Behind her, there was a metallic clatter and several thumps; the cell door rattled on its hinges. The prisoner was shouting something – screaming, really – but Dilly was kicking and clawing at her captor, and couldn't hear a word. She did make out a few orcish curses, and then a "Jest shove 'er in this one an' 'ave done," whereupon she had her knees kicked out from under her and was flung headlong into a tiny stone cell. She cracked her head hard against the wall, staggered 

to her feet, and stumbled back again as a heavy oak door slammed shut a few inches from her nose.

Dilly lunged at the little barred window set in the door, but the bolt had already been shot home. She rattled the bars uselessly, and the orcs laughed, kicked the door, and set off back down the hallway. The light of the torch faded. Dilly was left in total blackness, bruised from head to foot, and positively smoking with fury.

She could hear the man in the cell across from hers panting raggedly. Only now that he'd stopped shouting did Dilly appreciate just how upset he had sounded: as though he were being tortured or something. She replayed the crash of the cell door and guessed he'd been trying to beat it down.

But now there was only silence, heavy and grim.

"Um. Hello?" said Dilly.

For a long moment, there was no answer. Then, at last, she heard a faint metallic _chink,_ and a muffled groan."I'm sorry," said the man, his voice raw. "Oh, Valar… I'm so sorry."

**EREDOLYN**

Eredolyn stared admiringly, if a little nervously, around her new chambers. The first was a sitting room, small but luxurious: soft furs carpeted the floor and the walls were hung with intricately-worked tapestries in Rohirric gold and green. Eredolyn didn't recognize a single legend they depicted, however much she stared. _Tolkien only brushed the surface, really_, she thought. _This is a whole _world_. It's huge, and complicated, and dange…_

_Oooh…_ Eredolyn let go of the tapestry she was fingering and took a few steps into the next room, lured by the enticing scent of lavender and roses.

This room was clearly the sleeping room: it was dominated by an enormous canopy bed, which was in its turn dominated – very nearly drowned – in overstuffed satin pillows. The floral scent came from the crisp, turned-down sheets, and wafted toward her along with the billowing gauzy canopy in the breeze from an open window.

_Hah! _thought Eredolyn, crossing to the casement and peering down. _This is too easy. I'll just knot a few sheets together, tie them to the windowsill, and…_

_And… uh…_

Eredolyn sank down on the bed – which in additional to being scented and gorgeous was also sinfully soft – wrestling with sudden vertigo. Orthanc was tall. Very, very, very tall. A small and extremely petrified little voice deep inside pointed out that _actually_ scaling down Tolkien-knew-how-many stories on _actual_ flimsy bedsheets might perhaps be easier said than done. Especially since her head had been throbbing so much on the trip up here that she couldn't walk a straight line.

"Dang it!" Eredolyn muttered. "If I'm in Middle-earth, why couldn't I have gotten the fearless attitude to go with it?"

Well, since she was stuck here, she might as well take a look around. There was certainly a lot to look at, starting with…

Eredolyn crossed the room and stared reverently up at the gorgeously detailed map of Rohan hanging on the wall. "Wow," she breathed. She was a sucker for maps – all maps. But _this_… it was just like the tapestries: familiar, beautiful, and slightly mysterious. There were places written in that she'd never heard of… hundreds of tiny villages…

_Which Saruman is probably ordering burnt to the ground at this very moment,_ she reminded herself. _Don't let all this stuff get to you, Ere. He's still evil._

Another whiff of lavender curled around her.

Okay, fine. Saruman was evil. But would it hurt to take advantage of his hospitality? She was battered and exhausted, and her head hurt abominably. It would be easier to deal with the wizard once she was clean and rested. She reflected that she hadn't done the most stellar job dealing with him just now… translating Rohirric ballads, indeed! Eredolyn crushed a longing sigh. _Evil wizard_, she reminded herself. She touched her head, and was surprised by a sudden sharp pain. Her hair was stiff and sticky.

_Oh_, thought Eredolyn, blinking vaguely. Those orcs must have his her even harder than she'd thought. Huh. She hadn't noticed, really: her thinking had been a little muzzy, but she'd attributed that to the shock of finding herself in an alternate reality.

All right, then; she'd clean herself up a bit, take a quick nap, and then get back to escaping. She was in a fanfic now, after all, and everyone knew those were chock-full of unrealistic but highly exciting escapades.

How hard could it be?

**EICYS**

Eicys ducked out of the mess hall with only a bruise or two from an orc who'd tried to kick her legs out from under her. She sagged with relief once she'd made it past: she had only been here a day, but already she had a sense of what happened to you in this place once you were down. It wasn't pretty.

The orc's mess hall, like most of Orthanc's outbuildings, was built underground. The smoky scarlet light in the cavern cast more shadows than it dispelled, and within about three minutes Eicys had managed to lose herself again. She edged down a side passage, skirted a huge, gaping pit – and pulled up short.

The uruk who'd helped her earlier was sitting on a boulder, hunched up and scowling at nothing. Torchlight rimmed him in blood and flame. One huge, armored fist was pressed against his forehead.

Eicys meant to creep past unnoticed, but something stopped her: he looked so tired. Against her better judgment – almost against her will – she stepped forward and said, quietly, "Hey."

He glanced up, startled. "Hey." He frowned. "What're y' doin' down here?"

Eicys raised her shoulders and let them drop. "Nothing," she said. "Are you all right?"

The uruk blinked. His hand moved slowly away from his face and he stared at her.

"…I'm fine," he said at last, astonished.

Eicys felt a little encouraged. "Do they always give you such a hard time?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Only when there's no one smaller t' pick on. Usually I jus' let 'em; they're too scared of me t' do any real damage."

"What about just now, then?" Eicys asked. She was surprised to find she actually cared. There had been something horrible about the uruk's friendly brown eyes going flat and vicious as he fought back.

He shrugged again. "Tha' was an ugly crowd. It would ha' gone t' blood if I hadn' grabbed tha' maggot an' cooled everyone off. An' then…" He trailed off and rubbed the hilt of his scimitar restlessly.

Eicys squinted at the expression on his face. "You don't like fighting," she realized aloud, baffled. He looked up fast, his face twisted in a snarl – and hesitated. Eicys stood very still as he gave her a searching, suspicious stare. Then he sat back and looked away again: answer enough.

"Can I ask why?" she ventured.

"_No_," he growled immediately. "Y' ask too many questions as 't is."

"Sorry," said Eicys, looking down at her bowl of glop from the mess hall. After a quick sniff, she decided to postpone the ordeal as long as possible. She set it down, glancing up at the huge uruk through her eyelashes as she did so. He was staring at her intently, but jerked his gaze away again the second she caught him. Eicys tipped her head to one side, curiously. "Are you sure you're all right?"

He opened his mouth, then shut it again, plainly baffled by her interest. Confusion gave way to cold suspicion, and Eicys marveled at how that brutish face showed every last emotion, clear as day. "Wha' d'you care?" the uruk snarled.

"I was just asking – "

"Yeah, y're big on questions, aren' you? Why don' y' leave me alone?"

"Oh," said Eicys. "Well, fine. Never mind, I don't care. Carry on with… whatever you were doing." She shoved her helmet further over her eyes and turned away, muttering, "jerk."

She'd only gone a few steps before she heard the grating voice call, "Y' forgot y'r… food."

It was a bad sign, thought Eicys, that even the orcs weren't sure what to call that glop. "You can have it," she said over her shoulder.

There was a pause. "Oh," said the uruk. "Er. Thank you." He screwed up his eyes immediately, as though he'd just said something incredibly stupid. "I mean, I… Ah, forget it. Thanks."

Eicys turned the rest of the way around. "You're welcome," she said. She frowned at him. "You know, you're not half as nasty as you keep trying to be."

"Great," muttered the uruk through a mouthful of food.

Eicys grinned to herself. Aloud, though, all she said was, "Hungry?" She'd never seen anyone eat so fast: three seconds in and there was barely a spoonful left.

The uruk paused. "Yeah," he said at last, staring at the bowl. "Y' sorta get used t' it." He gulped down the final bite and scraped out the last greasy dregs with a claw. "Yuck," he said, licking his fingers.

"You don't like it?" asked Eicys.

"'Course not. Would you?"

Eicys grimaced expressively, and one corner of the uruk's mouth kicked up in what might almost have been a smile: yellow fangs gleamed in the torchlight. Eicys winced. Still, progress was progress. If she wanted to survive in this place, she was going to need help, and this uruk seemed the only one likely to give it.

"Hey," she said, "I know you don't like questions, but I've got one more, and it's very important."

A pair of suspicious brown eyes scanned her face. "Well?" he asked sourly.

She gave him an impish smile. "What's your name?"

The uruk went stiff all over. For the briefest second Eicys saw incredulity and hurt flash across his face, and then his contradictory eyes blazed with fury. He lashed out with one gauntleted fist: a crushing backhanded blow. It caught her full in the ribs.

Eicys had a blurred impression of the landscape cartwheeling past, and then she slammed into the dirt once, twice, and a third time as she tumbled limply down a slope toward the yawning pit she'd skirted earlier.

A single thought, made ridiculous by pain and terror, seized her mind in an iron grip:

_Oh dear. I'm going to die._


	13. The Name Game

**CHAPTER TWELVE**

**EICYS**

Eicys heard a shout of alarm, and a hand closed around her wrist just as the rest of her tumbled into the pit. Her feet swung crazily over a quarter-mile of empty space. Still limp and nauseous with pain, she felt herself hauled onto solid ground again. She looked up into the uruk's brutish face.

Eicys squeezed her eyes shut and hoped this wasn't going to hurt too badly…

"Stop tha'," he growled. "I'm not goin' t' hurt you."

Eicys didn't have the breath – or the suicidal instincts – to add a sarcastic "again." And she lost even the inclination quite quickly: she still couldn't breathe. The uruk, who had been about to turn away, hesitated and bent over her again. After a while he began to look alarmed. "C'mon," he muttered. "I didn' hit y' tha' hard… Come on…"

And at last air began seeping into her chest in hoarse, shallow gasps. Eicys realized abruptly that she was gripping the orc's wrist so tightly her fingers ached; she yanked her hand back as though scalded, and stared at him.

He stared back, guardedly, and touched his wrist with a preoccupied air. "You a'righ'?" he grated.

"Yeah," croaked Eicys.

"Thought y' were gonna die for a minute there," he joked.

Eicys refused to look at him. "Yeah." She levered herself shakily upright. A hand gripped her arm and there was a moment of disoriented panic before she realized he'd set her on her feet with as little effort as she might have expended in straightening a pillow.

"Y' sure y're a'righ'?"

"I'm fine," Eicys snapped, pulling away. The uruk gave her a stiff nod, and a sort of shutter closed over his eyes: he was all orc again. He just stood and watched as she set about slowly and painfully adjusting various bits of metal that had bent or slipped or twisted around her limbs. Armor was a pain. Literally. She should've worn Murgash's nasty leather undershirt after all: she was going to have bruises everywhere. "Horrible stuff," she muttered.

"Be glad y' had it on," said the uruk, and Eicys jumped. He didn't look at her face, though, only her armored torso, and his expression was strangely bitter. Eicys looked down at her breastplate. Her face twisted in shock. No wonder it felt so uncomfortable – the uruk had left a dent in the thing that stretched from its lower edge nearly to her armpit. It looked like she'd been hit by a wrecking crane.

"Oh," said Eicys, dazed. The uruk winced. "How did you _do_ that?" asked Eicys. Then a certain sense of injustice reared its head, and she added angrily, "And _why?_"

"I'm strong for my size," he said dully.

Eicys eyed almost eight feet of bulky orc. _Eeek… _she thought. Still, being Eicys, she couldn't be prevented from saying, "Fine, then – what about the _why_?"

The anger, which had never really left his eyes, boiled to the surface again. "As though y' weren' listenin' in th' mess hall," he snarled.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Eicys demanded recklessly. "I only wanted to know your name, for Pete's sake! If you didn't want to tell me, you could've just _said_ so!"

The uruk stared at her for a long moment. At last he said, warily, "_Halg shurg'ik Ungrath duz 'na."_

"What?"

A pause. "Y' don' understand th' Speech," he said, his voice slow with realization.

"The what?" snapped Eicys.

"Black Speech."

"Oh," said Eicys, disoriented. "Uh, no. I… never got the hang of it."

"So… so y' didn' catch anythin' back there."

She shook her head, scowling.

"…Oh," said the uruk, and Eicys had never before heard an unspoken expletive hang so loudly in the air. There were several words that could be applied to the orc's expression, the only repeatable one of which would probably be '_oops.'_

Eicys shifted impatiently, and felt her ribs send up a splintery scream of pain. She stifled a moan, but her eyes watered and her breath hissed between her teeth. The uruk jerked his eyes away from her face, looking as though he hated himself.

"Ungrath," he muttered, defeated.

"Come again?'

"I don' really have a name," he said. "Y' c'n jus' call me Ungrath; mos' people do."

"But…that's what they were calling you in the mess hall," Eicys ventured. "It's your name? It sounded like – something else. Um, bad."

"I told y' I don' have a name," said the uruk. "_Ungrath_ jus' means 'experiment'.

There was a small, sick silence. Eicys remembered the blur of motion, the uruk swinging his prey out at arm's length. _An' y' know what Sharkey was experimentin' _for_?_

"Don' stare at me like tha'," said Ungrath.

"What… what do you mean by experiment?" Eicys asked.

"Wha' it sounds like," he said. "The wizard's always wantin' better fighters. When he's got time he likes t'… practice… on th' ones he's got." He shrugged, but it seemed to be disguising a shudder. "I was one of th' practicings."

Eicys went limp with horror. "He _made…_"

"No," snarled Ungrath. "No one can do tha'. All he can do is… mess wi' things. But I didn' work ou', obviously – "

"Why obviously?" asked Eicys.

Ungrath snorted. "Y' think th' kind of orc tha' Sharkey's after would be talkin' t' _you?_"

"Oh," said Eicys. "But you're… very strong…" _And if that doesn't win me the award for Understatement of the Year,_ she thought to herself, _it can't be won._

Ungrath curled one gauntleted hand into a fist. "Bein' strong is pretty pointless if y' don' fight," he said.

"So… why don't you?"

"Questions," he snarled to himself. Louder, he said, "If I told y' it was jus' t' spite Sharkey, would y' believe me?"

"Everything but the 'just'," said Eicys.

"Close enough, then," he said.

After a while it became clear that he wasn't going to say anything else. The line of his back and shoulders was hunched and stiff, and he wouldn't look at her. At last Eicys cleared her throat and said, "Well, I guess… I know why you freaked out over the name thing, now. So, uh, sorry."

If Ungrath had looked astonished before, it was nothing to the way he looked now. He stared at her incredulously. "I hit _you,_" he pointed out.

"I haven't forgotten," Eicys said, dry as the Sahara. "I think you cracked a couple ribs."

The uruk grimaced and looked away. "Sorry," he said. "I don' usually lose my temper tha' way."

"Lucky me."

"Yeah. Well." He rubbed his arm uneasily. After a while he said, "I'm off t' th' barracks, then. If y' need anythin'… well, y'd better find someone else t' play nursemaid, 'cause y' need an awful lot of lookin' after, an' havin' me on y'r side is probably goin' t' do more harm than good."

"Why?"

"Morgoth – you an' y'r questions. I thought I was pretty clear before: _I didn' work. _I'm th' first failed experiment tha's ever lived long enough t' escape Sharkey's workroom. Tha' puts me flat at th' bottom of th' peckin' order, strong or no, an' I c'n live a'righ' down there but there's no point in _you_ – "

"I don't mind."

Ungrath took a step backwards. "You – wha'?" he asked stupidly.

"Well, I'm not about to win any popularity contests around here, either," said Eicys. "We might as well stick together." Then, since he was still staring at her as though she'd grown a second head, she added, "Um… if you don't mind, anyway."

"No!" said Ungrath. "Er. I mean, tha's fine. Um. Really?"

Eicys nodded.

"Righ'," Ungrath said. "Er, right. Yeah. So. Th' barracks are this way…"

"Lead on," said Eicys. And she followed the hulking uruk across the Ring of Isengard, shaking her head and thinking that she'd just formed what had to be the strangest partnership in the history of Middle-earth.

**DILLY**

Dilly blinked uncomprehendingly at the prisoner across from her. – Or at the darkness where his voice was, at any rate. The phrase "pitch black" doesn't mean much until you've had to touch your own eyes to make sure they're open. "Who are you?" she asked.

Silence. Then the man's voice came again, with a slightly strangled edge to it that said he was doing his best to stay calm: "You don't… Lothiriel? It's me. What are you doing here? Maenadan didn't… You're not – Please tell me you're all right."

"I think you've got me confused with someone else," said Dilly.

She heard a hiss of breath. She could have sworn the temperature dropped slightly from the chill in the man's voice: "Who are you, then?"

"My name's Dilly. Who are _you_? And who's Lothi – ouch!" Dilly pulled back from the bars as a brilliant, agonizing lance of pain shot through her hand and wrist. "Who's Lothiriel?" she finished, prodding at the painful spot experimentally.

He didn't answer; instead he asked politely, "Are you hurt?"

"Not really. I think I broke my thumb."

"You—what?"

"I forgot to leave my thumb out of the fist when I punched that orc," said Dilly. "What did you say your name was?"

"But – " There was a brief pause while the man came to terms with an essential Dilly-ism: an absolute antipathy toward fuss of any kind, particularly and especially if it was about her. Dilly had always treated injuries, however dire, as a minor annoyance, and she couldn't see why everyone else couldn't do the same.

At least this one was relatively quick on the uptake. He left the 'but' unfinished, and simply said, "Taras. Formerly of Dol Amroth. And you are…?"

"Dilly, like I said. Ah… 'Formerly'?"

"I've had an unwanted change of address," Taras said dryly, and Dilly managed a smile before he continued: "Where are you from, then… 'Dilly'?"

Dilly bristled at his tone. It was the cool, tolerant tone of someone who expects to be treated to a long load of nonsense. "Nowhere you would know," she said.

"I've traveled a great deal of Middle-earth," he said pleasantly.

"How nice for you," said Dilly, matching his tone.

"No," said Taras. "It wasn't. But at least it was informative."

"Meaning that I'm not," said Dilly, who didn't much care.

"Oh, I'm sure you are," said Taras, "when the right people are asking."

Dilly folded her arms and glared into the darkness. "And are you a decent human being when the _right people_ get thrown into the cell across from you?"

"I don't know," said Taras blandly. "I've never had the opportunity to find out, seeing as Saruman gave very strict orders that I was to be kept in total isolation. Now why, I wonder, would he chose to suddenly rescind that order for a young, pretty, helpless-looking girl? Oh, and she's even _injured._" His tone dropped from bland to frigid faster than a plunge into the Arctic Ocean. Dilly actually shivered, which was not something she was prone to doing. "I'm not stupid, you know," said Taras. "Nor, against all logic, have I gone completely mad yet. And I think I've learned my lesson when it comes to trusting people. So why don't you just trot back upstairs to your master and tell him to come down himself if he wants me interrogated? I've got a sharpened rock all ready and waiting for him."

Dilly was impressed. This annoyed her. "You hear this, Mr. Suspicious?" she asked, rattling her cell door. The bolt clanged like the iron gates of the netherworld. "That's what we in the prisoner business like to call a _lock._ A lock is something that makes it rather difficult to _trot _anywhere. I am not working for Saruman, I am not interested in interrogating you, and if you call me helpless again I will slap you into next week."

"You've got two sets of bars in your way."

Dilly scowled. "It will be a… a verbal slap, okay? A really vicious one."

"Well, that's good, seeing as you 'broke your thumb' last time you attempted a physical blow. –You might want to brush up on your acting skills, by the way. No real female breaks her thumb and then goes straight on to 'what did you say your name was?'"

"Oh, gee, I'm sorry," Dilly said, rolling her eyes. She did not like being reminded of her injury; she'd been ignoring it so efficiently up till now. "Next time I'll wail and sob and swoon and earn myself lots of sympathy, the way a _real _female would do."

She heard Taras draw a breath, as though he were going to say something, but he didn't. Silence settled over their cells, heavy as the stone tower above them.

_Well, crap,_ thought Dilly, after about an hour.

It was going to be a long, awkward, and very silent imprisonment.

**LCLCLCLCLCLCLCLCLCLC**

Hello, all our lovely readers! I apologize most sincerely for the delay, and for the delays likely to accrue in the future. Y'see, I'm studying at Cambridge this summer, and my life is INSANE.

It does not help that the publisher I recently sent my novel to wrote back that they like it and want to see the rest... which I do not actually have written. You can imagine the exponential increase in (maniacally happy) insanity after I found _that_ out. :D

Thanks for your patience and your reviews -- they mean the world to us! Seriously, we crave your reviews like Gollum craves shiny jewelry. Any more that you choose to send us will be polished and admired and carried about in our pocketses.

Cheers!

Tuima and the Immies (Good garbage, that sounds like a rock band or something, doesn't it?)


	14. The Nature of Silence

**CHAPTER THIRTEEN**

**DILLY**

It was quiet.

Very, very quiet.

The phrase "deathly quiet," would not go amiss. "Silent as the grave," would be similarly appropriate. The inside of a coffin would probably have been noisier.

Dilly was so bored she almost wished for a coffin of her own. Several hours had passed. In that time, she had heard the faint rustle of her own clothing whenever she shifted position, and the steady, almost inaudible sigh of two people breathing. And that was all.

She could feel cold, dank stone under her fingers. She could smell the tang of old rot from her straw-stuffed pallet. She could see precisely nothing.

Dilly wondered how long Taras had been down here. It couldn't have been that long – she could still remember the orcs' conversation on the way to Isengard: "_There's only one pris'ner what's survived Sharkey's dungeons fer more'n a few months, an' everyone sez 'e's as crazy as a warg wiv 'is tail afire."_ Of course, Dilly had never seen a warg with its tail on fire – or any kind of warg, for that matter -- but Taras seemed pretty lucid to her.

…Barring the whole bit about him accusing her of being Saruman's minion, that is. Oh, and the part where he called her "Lothiriel" and tried to break his cell door down with his bare hands.

Okay, she thought. So I'm stuck in another world, in the dungeon of the second most evil villain available. I have no idea where my friends are. Eredolyn is concussed and deluded, Eicys is probably dead, and the man across from me is quite possibly insane.

And even if he isn't, he's a jerk and I'm not going to give him the satisfaction of speaking first.

Well, this is shaping up to be a barrel of laughs.

**TARAS**

_Clink_.

Taras cursed in the privacy of his head. It wasn't easy to move soundlessly when you were chained to a wall, but Taras had enough training and Elven ancestry to enable him to take a cat unawares. He was having trouble focusing, that was all – his head came up sharply every time he caught a whisper of breath or movement from the opposite cell, and his ears were ringing with the first real conversation he'd had in… too long. Much too long. He was a little surprised he still remembered how to form the words properly.

He ached to try again. His whole body was crammed with words; they filled his throat and pressed against his tightly clenched teeth; he was choking on them.

No, no, no. Don't trust her.

Maenadan's voice slunk through his head, a snide little whisper: _Haven't you learned your lesson, Taras? _

The silence was almost throttling him by now. It was a physical thing, that silence: cold, heavy, and vicious. It lurked in the darkness, fed off of it, glutted itself on the passive despair of the prisoners.

Four steps, stop, turn. Four steps, stop, turn. Careful steps, slow and soft: keep the chain from moving. Hold your arm just so. Don't think, don't speak, keep silent, silent…

…silent...

Taras stopped pacing, and stood in the middle of his cell, fighting for control. He concentrated on the pain in his wrist, glad for once of that nagging distraction.

The manacle had left bruises ringing the base of his hand. Recent exertions had torn open the eternally half-healed wounds, and now blood trickled across his palm and dripped off his fingers. But this wasn't new enough to be interesting: he'd spent so much time wrenching at that manacle that the scar tissue probably went all the way to the bone by now. The pain certainly did.

Taras turned impatiently back to his pacing.

_Clink._

He stifled a growl.

"What _is_ that?" asked Dilly suddenly.

The sound of a human voice broke over Taras' soul like a wave over a blistering desert. "Nothing," he said, savoring the rich round feel of the word in his mouth, and the fact that there was someone to hear it.

"Hmp," said Dilly, and silence returned like a blow. Taras sagged.

_It wouldn't hurt to talk to her a little…_

He squashed the thought, ruthlessly. The taste of his single word had turned dry and bitter in his mouth.

_Maybe she really is just another prisoner, _the same little voice begged him.

Taras rolled his eyes. Maenadan's voice answered for him: _And maybe you're still as naïve as you were when I stole your life. I always knew you were an idealist, Taras, but I never took you for an idiot._

Unspoken words chapped his mouth. He went back to pacing.

**EICYS**

They took the route above ground. Ungrath explained to her, in his short, stop-asking-me-questions way, that the path through the caverns was shorter, but more crowded. Eicys understood the implication: _outcasts like us avoid crowds. _

The sun was setting, turning the poisonous fogs of Isengard a brilliant ruby red. Ungrath trudged through the reek with his head down and his eyes screwed up against the light, but Eicys stood up straight for the first time in what felt like hours. She didn't like being underground.

But Ungrath kept glancing at her, little sideways looks with an unnervingly appraising edge to them, until a self-conscious Eicys hunched her shoulders and back in imitation of the uruk's posture. She couldn't afford to relax; she'd already let her guard down too far. _He may be on my side right now, but he's still just an orc,_ she reminded herself.

"Y' never told me y'r name," he said, as they skirted a hole left by an uprooted tree. Splintered roots stuck up like ribs out of an old corpse.

"Oh? Oh. It's…" _What had that uruk in Fangorn called the dead orc? Marduk? Gharshuk? Murshag? _"…Marlush…uk…ag," Eicys invented wildly.

"Righ'," drawled Ungrath. "Y' wan' t' throw a few more syllables in for good measure, or jus' tell me th' truth?"

"That's my name!" said Eicys.

"Yeah," said Ungrath. "Sure it is. Well, I guess y' could come up wi' worse."

Eicys wilted. And after all, she reasoned, Ungrath had told her _his_ name. Eventually. "Eicys," she muttered.

"Yeah," he said nodding. "Tha's def'nitely worse."

"Oh. – Hey!"

Ungrath just kept walking, but there was something like a grin on his face. He said nothing further until they pulled up in front of a structure that was half cave, half ramshackle hut. It was full of smoke and torchlight, and smelled abominable. "Here we are – this is where th' West quadrant bunks."

Eicys stared at the narrow, filthy chaos of the bunkhouse, edging away as a scarlet-eyed goblin passed them. "Oh," she said. "Um. Where should I sleep?" An orc with slit pupils and about two dozen eyebrow rings sneered at her as he brushed past.

"…Eicys?" Ungrath muttered suddenly. "C'mere a minute." And he grabbed her elbow and hauled her bodily around a corner of the barracks, out of sight. Eicys' feet left grooves in the dirt as she fought to pull free; Ungrath didn't even appear to notice her struggles. And there was, Eicys reflected, no real reason why he should: his arms were about as thick around as her waist. He came to an abrupt halt and released her. Eicys sullenly adjusted a greave and said, "Well? What?"

"Y' gotta stop doin' tha'," he pled.

"What?" she asked.

"Meetin' people's eyes."

Eicys stared at him in alarm.

"There," said Ungrath immediately. "Tha'. Don' do tha'. Y' never know when y' migh' run into someone wi' half a workin' brain who'll see through tha' disguise. Not likely in this place, but still. Mos' trouble I c'n handle, but I really, _really _don' need any more attention from…" He jerked his head toward Saruman's looming tower. "Got it?"

"What disguise?" Eicys demanded numbly. "I'm an orc!"

"Yeah, an' I'm an Elf," snorted Ungrath. "Think I'm stupid as well as ugly? Your pretty human hair's still stickin' ou' of your helmet."

Eicys' hand flew to the rim of her helmet, and found only iron. "Ha," said Ungrath, and rocked back a little, folding his arms in satisfaction. Eicys realized in a flash that he _hadn't_ known she was human: he'd had to test her first. And she'd just failed.

"Oh help," she mumbled, the words drowned by the roaring in her ears. "Ungrath – you... you wouldn't…?"

"Oh, stop lookin' at me like tha', will you? I've known almos' since I met you. If I was goin' t' tell someone I'd ha' done it a'ready."

Eicys was not particularly reassured. She fought to keep her breathing steady. "Okay," she said. "That's… that's good."

He considered her a moment – that same confused, appraising stare she kept catching him at, as though he were expecting something and wasn't entirely sure what it was. She stared back at him, dimly aware that she was shaking, and unable to do anything about it.

"Hey," said Ungrath, frowning. "Calm down, a'righ'? I'm not goin' t' tell anyone."

She bit her lip. "You won't?"

Ungrath hesitated, then shook his head.

"You promise?" Eicys demanded.

"An' wha' do y' think tha's worth?" he asked, bitterly. "An oath from an orc? -- _Don' _look at me like tha'! I promise, a'righ'? I won' tell."

Eicys took a deep, shuddering breath, and covered her eyes. She nodded.

"Jus' – " He paused, and swallowed. "Jus' don' get caught, a'righ'?"

"No," said Eicys. "All right. I – Thank you." She opened her eyes. If Ungrath had been anyone – or more appropriately, any_thing – _else, she probably would have thrown her arms around him. As it was, she put out both hands in a kind of halfway gesture and repeated, "_thank you_," fervently.

Ungrath glanced at her hands, then quickly back up at her. "Yeah," he said. "Well." His face had gone a strange charcoal color. It took Eicys a moment to realize he was embarrassed: apparently orcs blushed black. Abruptly, she smiled. For some reason, the sight of this huge ugly monster flushed clear to the tips of his ears was the most reassuring one Eicys could have asked for. She just couldn't see anyone else in this place reacting that way to a thank-you. She'd made the right choice, trusting him.

"Stop smilin' like tha'," said Ungrath, who was by now as black as new tar. "Y' don' have th' right sort of teeth."

"Well, there's no toothpaste in this place," Eicys said gaily. "It shouldn't take long."

Ungrath shook his head. "Y' need a lot of lookin' after, don' you?"

"I do not!"

The uruk just looked at her. Eicys shifted, scuffed one foot in the dirt, and looked away. Ungrath nodded. "Now c'mon," he said, "or someone'll take th' spot we're after."

Eicys kept close behind as he shouldered his way through the bunkhouse to the back. High in one shadowy corner was a shelf nearly three times the size of the others. "Up there," said Ungrath. He allowed Eicys to scramble up the ladder first, then swung himself up after her.

"Oy, Experiment!" someone said from down below. "That's not yer spot!"

"It is _now_," snarled Ungrath. "Back off."

The orc did so, looking astonished and not a little frightened. Eicys didn't blame him at _all._ Facing down an irritated Ungrath was like tickling a beartrap: okay if you didn't mind losing a limb.

The uruk turned back to her with a groan. "Soon as word gets ou' tha' I'm gettin' uppity, things'll get ugly," he said. He looked her over, and said, "Uh – better if you don' watch when tha' happens, yeah?" Eicys nodded. Ungrath groaned again. "Morgoth, Eicys – _eyes_. Tha' wide-eyed rabbit thing isn' goin' t' do y' any good here. Apart from anythin' else, this lot'll eat y' alive if they think y're scared."

"I am not scared!"

He grinned. Eicys felt something clench in the pit of her stomach. _Too many teeth...!_ "Good," he said. "Now get rid of tha' armor an' go t' sleep."

"I can't."

"Huh?"

"I'm not wearing the right sort of clothes underneath."

"Sleep in th' mail, then; I don' care."

"Oh." Eicys tried to get comfortable on the wooden bunk, and failed. Eventually she gave up; she was too tired to care, anyway. "Good night, Ungrath."

Ungrath twisted around to look at her. "What?"

"G'night…" she mumbled, half asleep already. It had been a long day.

"What kinda thing is tha' t' say?" the uruk asked. "Y' can't make it good jus' by _sayin'_."

But Eicys was fast asleep.

Ungrath gave her another curious look, and lay down again. He couldn't help a small pang of panic. She really didn't look anything like an orc, especially now, with her face all soft with sleep. How in Morgoth's name was he going to pull this off? Sharkey would kill him on a whim, and for an infraction like this…

Ungrath's fingers found his scimitar hilt in the darkness. _Hand an' Eye, I'm gonna be in so much trouble…_


	15. The Plot Thickens

**CHAPTER FOURTEEN**

**DILLY**

"Okay," said Dilly suddenly, on the morning of her second day in the dungeon. "This is getting ridiculous."

An intake of breath from the opposite cell informed her that she had Taras' attention. She forged ahead: "You don't trust me; well, fine. I don't like you. Shall we just call it even and start over?"

Silence.

Dilly rolled her eyes. "Hi," she said, in a parrot-like voice. "I'm Dilly. I'm lost and annoyed and royally freaked out."

Silence.

"Why, hello, Dilly," she parroted back, her impatience clearly audible. "I'm Taras. I'm suspicious and sarcastic and I really like silence."

Yet more silence.

"Well, I can see we're going to get along like a house on fire," muttered Dilly, and shut her mouth with a snap.

The empty darkness seeped into her bones. Minutes ticked past.

"…Hello, Dilly," said a measured, slightly mocking voice from across the hall. "I'm Taras. I am in fact suspicious; I think you might win as far as sarcasm goes… and I really, really _hate _silence."

"Wow. Could've fooled me."

"I've had practice," said Taras, in a voice bled dry of emotion.

"It gets… really quiet down here," Dilly ventured.

"Yes," said Taras, his voice so low and would-be casual that it send shivers skittering up Dilly's spine. "It does."

"It's like this all the time?" asked Dilly.

"An orc comes by once a day with food. And the guard changes three times." His voice dropped; he sounded like he was talking to himself. "Twenty-eight seconds of light. There's not much you can do with twenty-eight seconds."

"Um. I guess not," said Dilly, throwing an odd glance into the void beyond her cell door. Taras was intriguing, in an uncomfortable sort of way: he was so _intense._ His voice throbbed with suppressed emotion -- fury, bitterness, longing.

Silence stepped eagerly into the gap.

"Well," said Dilly. "Now that we've used up _that_ conversation piece…"

At home, she would have proceeded down the list of standard questions: where do you go to school, what are you studying, oh really, that sounds interesting, well it was nice meeting you. But here…

"Where are you from?" asked Taras.

"Oh, good _garbage_," said Dilly. "Are we back to that again?"

"It's a simple question," he said, in a voice you could bend steel around.

"No, actually, it isn't."

"Why not?" he asked, courtesy crusted along every word.

"Because I figure if we don't get along things will get really unpleasant down here," said Dilly.

"So, your country of origin will cause us to dislike one another?"

"Not exactly," said Dilly. "You see, if I tell you the truth, you'll think I'm insane. On the other hand, if you actually believe me, I'll know _you're_ insane. Either way, this can only end badly."

Taras gave an amused snort. "How much worse can it get?" he asked.

"Well… there could be spiders," said Dilly, thinking of Cebu's captivity in her bedroom closet.

Silence.

Dilly cradled her injured hand against her chest. "Is that a 'in fact there _are_ spiders, you poor idiot' silence, or a 'I'm blown away by your optimism, courage, and snappy wit' silence?"

"Frankly," said Taras, "both."

Dilly grinned.

"So," said Taras. "Where are you from?"

"You don't give up, do you?"

"One of my numerous social failings."

"The other of which is trying to break down a cell door with your bare hands?"

Taras said nothing for a moment. "I thought you were… someone else."

"Lothiriel," Dilly offered.

"Yes. You look quite similar, and if she had been down here it would've been…" He took a deep breath. "Well. I got mad."

"I could tell," said Dilly, recalling the frantic barrage of threats and curses he'd leveled at her guards. For some reason, she had the impression that not only had he meant every one of them whole-heartedly, he was perfectly capable of carrying them out himself. Something about this guy was… dangerous. She wished she'd been able to see his face.

Taras coughed, bringing her back to earth. "So. Where were we?"

"Your social failings," said Dilly.

"Before that," he said, and there was steel as well as a smile in his voice.

"In the same place we've been all along. Sheesh – talk about your stagnant conversation."

"Are you being coy," asked Taras, "or do you honestly refuse to tell me where you're from?"

"Okay, first off: I don't do coy. It's pointless and… gooey. Secondly, I'm from a place you've never heard of called America. Thirdly, why does it matter?"

"Because you wouldn't tell me."

"That's because you wouldn't believe me," said Dilly.

"Why shouldn't I?" asked Taras, in that polite voice. Dilly was beginning to recognize it as his irritated tone.

"Because you don't trust me," she said.

Taras thought for a moment. "Fair enough," he said simply. "Where is America?" He pronounced it _AHmerrica,_ in a smooth, liquid accent that was too musical to be precisely British.

Dilly sighed and tugged at her braid. Or tried to. She must have lost the elastic at some point; loose dark hair swept around her like a cloak. Her head would be an absolute rats' nest by morning.

Wouldn't that be fun.

"Well, we came out near Fangorn," she said slowly, "so I guess it must be near there."

She could _hear _the raised eyebrows in Taras' voice. "You don't know?"

"Look, I never even believed Middle-earth _existed_ until yesterday, okay? Where I come from, the whole thing is a figment of someone's imagination. In fact, I'm hoping it still is, and this is just a really really horrible dream. I'll wake up at Cebu's and find that someone left _The Two Towers_ running and I fell asleep watching it."

"You fell asleep watching two towers running, in a place where the world is a figment of someone's imagination," Taras said flatly.

Dilly considered that sentence for a moment. "Unfortunately," she said, "that's all pretty much accurate."

"Maybe you _aren't _working for Saruman," said Taras.

"Well _done," _said Dilly.

A pause.

"…Um. How did you finally figure that out?"

Taras snorted faintly. "I can't help thinking that if you were in the employ of someone who can twist minds and words as efficiently as the wizard, you would be a little better at this."

Dilly blinked. She felt an irrational grin spread across her face. Then she tipped back her head and laughed.

There was a _clank_ of startled movement in the cell across from her, and Taras breathed something like a curse. It sounded shocked to the point of reverence. Taras obviously never felt emotions by halves – although Dilly couldn't figure out what had sent him down this new path.

"What?" she asked.

"Oh -- Nothing," he said hurriedly. "Nothing. It's just – it's been a long time since I've heard anyone laugh." He paused, and added wryly: "It's been a long time since I've heard anyone, period."

Dilly tried to tug on her braid again and had to settle for a fistful of hair. "How long have you been here?" she asked quietly.

Taras tried for the casual voice again, and didn't manage it any better the second time around. Taras was obviously not someone to whom _casual_ came easily.

"About three years," he said.

Dilly rocked backwards.

"Holy Hannah," she said at last. "By yourself?"

"Do the guards count?" he asked, with that wry twist back in his voice.

Dilly didn't answer. She was busy imagining three years of solitary confinement in this pit. No light, no sound, no – _anything._

Her imagination rebelled, shying nervously away from the idea. There was just something… malicious about this place; a thin, foul, chilly evil that lurked in the corners like rot. It took Dilly about three seconds to decide that if she had to spend even _one_ year alone down here, she would go stark raving mad.

That was not exactly encouraging, as far as her confidence in Taras went.

"Oh," she said, and sought lamely for something new to say. The only thing she could come up with was: "So… What are you in for?"

Taras drew a long, long breath. "Blackmail, mainly," he said.

Dilly blinked. She barely knew the guy, of course, but still – he didn't seem the type. "Who did you blackmail?" she asked.

Taras gave a hoarse bark that was not quite a laugh. "You misunderstand me," he said, his voice raw with bitterness. "I _am_ the blackmail."

**EREDOLYN**

Eredolyn stretched luxuriously, a small moan of pleasure sounding in the back of her throat. The smoke and steam of Isengard's forges gave the morning sunlight falling onto her pillow a dull, rosy glow, like sunset. It was quite lovely, actually. But Eredolyn turned her back on it and snuggled defiantly into her pillow.

It was a _fantastic_ pillow. Technology and fancy ergonomic gels could take comfort a long way, but when all was said and done, there was nothing like a fat, silky sack of down. Especially after all that bashing about in the woods yesterday. Eredolyn was all for adventures, but she was most definitely a city girl. It had taken a very long, very hot, very scented-soapy bath to make her feel herself again. She still smelled of lavender and… something else. A strange, sharp, _green_ sort of smell. Tuima's pack had smelled like that, Eredolyn remembered.

Eredolyn hugged her pillow gleefully, thinking back. A real live Elf! Granted, Tuima hadn't exactly been what Eredolyn had expected from reading _The Lord of the Rings_ – but then Saruman wasn't what she'd expected, either. He wasn't _nearly_ as horrible as Tolkien had made him sound.

Not, Eredolyn amended piously, that Tolkien hadn't been right. Ultimately. Overall. It was just that… well, if Middle-earth was a real place, full of people and towns and stories that Tolkien had never written… who was to say he'd gotten everything right? Didn't it make sense that there was more to Saruman – an immortal demigod appointed as a steward of Middle-earth – than some old professor could capture in a few pages of prose?

Eredolyn wrinkled her nose, uncomfortable with the direction her thoughts were heading. _Evil wizard!_ she reminded herself once again. She needed to plan her escape. The bedclothes-out-the-window approach was definitely not an option. So that left her no choice, really, but to set out to explore Orthanc.

And if she just so happened to pass Saruman's library in the course of her explorations… well, escaping could always wait a day. Or two.

Three at the outside.

**EICYS**

Ungrath had disappeared by the time Eicys woke up. She wasn't terribly upset about that: she'd had two different dreams in which he turned her in to Saruman and three more in which he simply killed her himself. In the other four dreams she'd been killed and/or eaten by an angry tree, a baggie of gruel, a giant pit that went on forever, and her own helmet.

The last dream was the one that had woken her up, to find that her helmet had twisted around while she slept so that the nose guard dug into her ear and the stink of the previous owner filled her nose. It smelled as though something had died in there.

Come to think of it, something probably had.

Eicys gagged, struggled for a few minutes, and finally managed to get her helmet turned around properly without showing any telltale blonde hair.

Then she lay back on the bunk – if a wooden slab could be called a "bunk" – and stared miserably at the ceiling.

She hurt.

To be precise: she hurt everywhere.

Her ribs felt splintered. Her head throbbed. Her jaw ached from her constantly chattering teeth. Her neck felt as though the bones had been welded together by a poorly trained contractor. She was covered in bruises, every muscle had gone stiff, and she was so hungry that even the mess hall fare sounded appealing.

…Okay, not appealing. Edible, maybe. Survivable, at any rate.

Eicys gritted her teeth and hauled herself upright, stifling a groan. As she slithered down from the bunk, she decided that she and the others _had_ to escape as soon as possible, if only for the sake of getting a decent meal.

And a decent mattress. And a shower. And then another shower. And perhaps a few years in a padded cell.

Eicys collected the spear that marked her out as a dungeon guard, checked again that her disguise covered anything suspicious, and ducked out of the barracks into the smoggy sunlight beyond.

It was a lovely day in Isengard. It was always a lovely day in Isengard, if by _lovely_ you meant an atmosphere like a chemist's outhouse and the sort of inhabitants that belong in the lower class of zombie movies.

"I hate this place," muttered Eicys.

**TUIMA**

"I hate this place," Tuima growled into her hands. She was huddled up into an astonishingly tiny ball, her spine wedged into one corner of her cell, her face pinched up tight and harsh. "Oh, Elbereth, I hate this place…"

A distant footfall jerked her upright. She groped frantically in the darkness, and produced a pair of sewing scissors from her pack. The orcs had taken her knives, but apparently the smell of lembas and potent medicinal herbs had prevented them from searching her pack too thoroughly.

Gripping the scissors in one hand and a small glass vial in the other, she positioned herself in front of the cell door, and waited.

A curiously un-orc-like voice reached her ears. "Second staircase, third right. Okay. Got that. Second left, eight cells down from the, um, fifth passage. …Right? No, it was five cells from the… eighth staircase after the… Darn it, why don't they have signposts or something in this freaking maze?"

Tuima blinked. Impossible. But…

"Eicys?"

A dull flare of torchlight appeared at the end of the corridor.

"Eicys!" Tuima called.

"Holy crap. Tuima? Is that you?"

"Eicys, what are you – " Tuima trailed off, and instead of finishing with "—doing here?" the way she had intended, blurted out: "—dressed as?"

"An orc!" said the human girl, flashing an incongruous white grin from under her helmet. "Pretty good idea, huh?"

"You don't look anything like an orc," Tuima pointed out. "Nor do you sound like one, smell like one, walk like one, or otherwise give any impression that you could possibly be one."

"Wow," said Eicys. "Pathetically enough, I think that's the nicest thing I've ever heard you say."

"This is not a game," Tuima snarled. "We thought you were dead. If humans could Fade, your sister would be halfway to Valinor by now. And now it turns out that you've simply been playing dress-up."

"Tuima," said Eicys, with a fair amount of Ungrath in her voice, "today is really not a good day for you to be a jerk to me."

"It is even less of a good day for you to be mucking around with a plan that would only ever work in some kind of ridiculous adventure story," Tuima shot back.

"Oh, so you have a better plan?"

"Naturally," said Tuima.

Eicys resisted the urge to bang a head against the wall – her own or Tuima's: she wasn't picky.

"…Though I will concede that your disguise may facilitate a more feasible method of accomplishing it," Tuima finished grudgingly.

"Tuima? How about you regurgitate that dictionary you swallowed, and get to the point?"

"Do you think your disguise is sufficient to get you upstairs?"

Eicys shrugged. "If I can sleep in the orc barracks and land a job as a dungeon guard, I figure walking to the top of Orthanc shouldn't be a problem."

For the briefest flicker of an instant, Tuima wore an expression that looked almost impressed. It disappeared immediately, of course.

"All right, then. You have to find Eredolyn."

"Okay," said Eicys. "Why?"

"We don't need a plan," said Tuima. "What we need is a guarantee that none of us will tell Saruman something he ought never to hear."

"Er. Don't we need a plan for that?"

"No," said Tuima. "We just need this." She held up the little glass vial.

"I don't follow," said Eicys. "What's in the bottle?"

"Hemlock," said Tuima.

"Oh," said Eicys. "Um. For what?"

"For whom, I think you mean."

"Tuima? This is _so_ the wrong time to be correcting my grammar."

Tuima did not look as though she agreed, but she carried on regardless. "It's for Eredolyn," she said.

Eicys took a step backwards. "Hold it a second. You want me to give Eredolyn a bottle of poison? Why?"

"I should think it obvious."

"Pretend I'm not a cynical morbid pessimist for a minute, okay?"

"There is no resisting Saruman's voice," said Tuima. "At least, not for long. And certainly not when one's mental state is as… fragile… as Eredolyn's.

Eicys' jaw dropped. "You want me to _kill _her?!"

Tuima actually rolled her eyes at that. "Don't be ridiculous," she said. "--Insofar as that is possible for you, anyway. Of course I don't want you to kill Eredolyn.

"I want Eredolyn to kill Saruman."


	16. Eicys' Bad Day

**CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Eicys' Bad Day**

"This is all the hemlock I have," Tuima said, pressing the bottle into Eicys' unwilling hands, "but I've got enough herbs in my pack to make up a few more poisons that are almost as effective, if you give me a little time."

"But – hang on," said Eicys. "What do I need the extra for?"

"It may… come in useful," said Tuima, fiddling with her oversized pack.

"I'm serious, Tuima. What would _I_ do with a bottle of poison?"

Tuima did not look up. "You might find yourself in a situation in which poison is better than the alternative," she said, her voice very low.

Eicys backed off several paces, staring. "You're crazy!" she said weakly. "Like _what?_"

Tuima finally raised her eyes. Eicys shied back another step at the expression in them. "You mean you can't hear it?" asked Tuima.

"Hear what?"

The Elf shivered. "Screaming," she said softly. "…Lots of screaming."

Eicys backed up another step. "You're making this up," she said, her voice shaking slightly. "You're trying to scare me. I can't hear anything."

Tuima turned away. "Just as you like," she said.

"Stop it!" Eicys said shrilly. "We're not going to die or be… or have anything like that happen to us! We're going to escape!"

"Oh?" growled Tuima. "Do you have keys? Weapons? A magic spell to put Saruman and his minions to sleep? Do you even know where the others are being held?"

"I'll find out! I'll get them! This will work!"

Tuima peered at her. "Elbereth," she said after a startled moment. "You actually believe that."

"Why shouldn't I?" Eicys demanded, a little too defensively.

"See above," said Tuima, "regarding lack of keys, weapons, vital knowledge, and grip on reality."

"Look, Miss Helpful," growled Eicys, "if you don't have something to contribute – "

Tuima held up a hand, cutting Eicys off in mid-sentence with an arrogance as thoughtless as it was effective. "Someone's coming," she said.

Eicys listened as hard as she could, and was rewarded with exactly nothing. "I swear you're making this stuff up."

"Just because your race is half-deaf does not mean I must suffer the same ignominy. You had better go. Can you find this cell again?"

"Of course I can," Eicys said stiffly.

"Good. Come back when you're sure it's safe." Something that was very nearly a smile flitted across Tuima's face like a departing spirit. "You may be sure of finding me here."

Eicys thought, as she stumbled through the blackness, that Tuima wouldn't have phrased her parting shot in exactly that fashion had she known how lost Eicys would end up. At this point, Eicys couldn't be sure of finding _anyone_, anywhere.

That didn't worry her nearly as much as the possibility of someone finding _her._ She was fairly confident that this was the last place on the planet where she wanted to run into –

A monstrous shape appeared at the end of the corridor, indistinct in the light of the smokey scarlet torch it carried.

Eicys skittered backwards, almost tripping over her stolen greave: that tree in Fangorn had bent it into a truly awkward shape. She groped along the wall until she found a cell door, and ducked in behind it.

The torch-bearer stopped. Eicys could see his shadow on the far wall, one massive fist moving toward his weapon, then away again. He cocked his head as though listening, and at last called out, very quietly: "Eicys? Tha' you?"

Eicys blinked, and edged – a little reluctantly -- out of her hiding place. "Ungrath?"

The big uruk relaxed visibly. "Here y' are, then," he said. "Y' were s'posed t' hand off y'r spear over an hour ago – what've y' been doing?"

"Oh, just… you know… exploring," said Eicys, with a bright smile.

Ungrath gave her a wry look. "Y' got lost, didn' y'?" he said.

"It's a freaking underground maze without any lights!"

"So, tha's a 'completely'," said Ungrath, smirking. "C'mon, then, we'll get out of here. Hand an' Eye, Eicys; y' need a lot of lookin' after."

"I'll figure it out," Eicys said, hurrying after him.

"By t'morrow?"

Eicys looked cornered. "Tomorrow? Why by then?"

"'Cause I had t' threaten three different people t' make sure y' kept y'r job, an' if I have t' do it again t'morrow they're goin' t' start gettin' suspicious. -- More suspicious," he amended.

"…Oh," said Eicys, slumping as the implications sunk in. She wouldn't be allowed to run around loose here; she would have to work with the system if she wanted to save her sister and friends. --And Tuima, who was (thank goodness) neither friend nor relation.

Then a few more implications sunk in, and she glanced up at the enormous uruk by her side. "Thanks, Ungrath."

"Er," he said awkwardly. "Yeah. Jus' don' let it happen again, a'righ'?"

"Okay," said Eicys, and added, daringly, "Maybe I had better explore some more tonight, then. Unless there's a map or something that you know of?"

He glanced sidelong at her. "Wha' are y' up to, Eicys?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Righ'," said Ungrath. "'Cause soft little human girls are _always_ dressin' up like orcs and askin' for maps of Sharkey's dungeons." He folded his arms. "I'm big an' ugly, Eicys. Contrary t' popular opinion, tha' doesn' make me stupid."

Eicys almost backed into the wall. Having Ungrath fold his arms at you was not an experience to be taken lightly. From her much shorter vantage point, it eclipsed almost his entire face. "I'm not doing anything!" she protested, her voice a little too high.

A bitter expression twisted Ungrath's mouth. "Look, I'm not goin' t' hurt y' – stop lookin' at me like tha', will you?" He shifted his shoulders uneasily, and glanced behind him. "Jus'… jus' be careful, is all I'm askin'."

"I'm not doing anything," Eicys repeated stubbornly.

"Yeah," said Ungrath. "Sure. Whatever. C'mon, let's get ou' of here."

And he stalked off without looking back, leaving Eicys no choice but to follow. She scuffled along behind him, attempting a vaguely orcish lurch as she went, and tripped on her greave again. Ungrath glanced over his shoulder at the sudden clatter, and Eicys flinched backwards before she could stop herself. The uruk's face darkened a little further in the smokey light, and he turned away with a grunt. After that, Eicys followed him in silence.

That was why she heard the laugh.

She pulled up short, and looked down the corridor it had come from. "Someone's down there!" she said. "I missed that hall!"

Ungrath looked around just as Eicys turned down the yawning black entrance to the corridor.

"Eicys…" he said in sudden alarm. "Eicys, stop!"

"She can't be very far," she said. She was convinced it was her sister: Cebu was exactly the sort of person to find something to laugh at in a lightless smelly dungeon.

"No – wait – _Eicys!_"

Eicys blinked. Her nose was nearly touching Ungrath's breastplate, and her head was swimming from being jerked back so quickly.

And, most disconcerting of all, her feet were not touching the ground.

The uruk dropped her and backed away, flushing black. "Sorry," he muttered. "But y' shouldn' go near tha' cell."

Eicys rubbed her shoulder. "Why not?" she asked, annoyed.

"Th' prisoner down there is… He… Look, jus' don' go down there alone, a'righ'?"

"But how am I supposed to feed him? It's my job to bring the prisoners their food tomorrow!"

"He'll live until th' day after," growled Ungrath.

"Oh, come on, Ungrath – he can't be that bad!"

Ungrath folded his arms. "Yeah," he said. "He can. He's completely crazy, Eicys. He hates orcs more'n he likes livin'."

"But what could he do through a cell door?" asked Eicys reasonably.

"He got ou' once," Ungrath said darkly. "An' no one's ever done tha' before. I wouldn' put anythin' past him."

"Oh," said Eicys, in sudden realization. "Is that why you're so nervous down here?"

Ungrath glared. At Eicys' wince, he let out a little growl of frustration, turned back around, and continued walking. "There's jus' somethin' wrong wi' this place," he said. "Evil. Everyone thinks it's great."

"But you don't?" asked Eicys shrewdly.

The uruk grunted, and picked up the pace a little.

"Why not?" asked Eicys, hurrying behind.

"I jus' don'."

"You're not much like the other orcs, are you?" Eicys asked.

"What _is _it wi' you an' askin' questions?" demanded Ungrath.

"Your accent is different," Eicys pointed out relentlessly. "You even look different."

The uruk stopped walking. "Of course I look different!" he snarled. "I'm a Void-cursed _experiment_! Th' first thing I remember is wakin' up strapped t' a table! Wha' are y' tryin' to prove here?"

"I'm just trying to find out more about you," she said meekly.

"Y're jus' bein' Void-cursed nosey, is wha' y're doin'."

"Well, if I'm going to trust you – "

Ungrath snorted. "Oh, tha's rich," he said viciously. "Y' don' trust me an inch, an' we both know it."

"What – but – I – "

Ungrath waited for her to stammer herself out. She shifted awkwardly in her ill-fitting armor, wishing that he weren't quite as good at reading her. Perhaps it was fair – most of the time she could read _him_ as though he were written in big block caps – but it was still extremely inconvenient.

Because he was right. She didn't trust him. He'd done an awful lot to help her, but…

_But he's a freaking ORC,_ said her subconscious. _What does he expect?_

"I'm sorry," she muttered at last. It sounded sullen and false even to her.

Ungrath stared at her for a moment, then growled, "Ah, forget it. Everything's been wrong since th' minute I met you. Go find someone else t' lie to." He shoved the torch into her hands and turned back the way they'd come.

"Wait – Ungrath!"

"Th' exit's tha' way," he said over his shoulder. "First staircase on th' left."

And he left.

Eicys stood stock-still for a moment, watching him go. Her conscience pitched a howling battle against suspicion, canonical perceptions of orcs, and the primal fear of large threatening things with teeth, and won a narrow victory.

Eicys broke out of her stasis and sped after the uruk. "Ungrath!" she called. "Wait!"

Five steps later she tripped on her armor again and fell flat with a clattering _bang_ that reverberated off the obsidian walls. "Augh!" yelled Eicys, close to tears. She yanked off the bent greave that kept tripping her up and hurled it against the wall. "Ungrath!" she called, scrambling to get up again.

But there was no sign of Ungrath anywhere. The dungeon was dark.

Eicys hesitated. The first staircase on the left beckoned: Eicys was exhausted, bewildered, and dizzy with hunger. And following an angry uruk into a lightless underground maze did not exactly make the top ten on her list of Clever Things To Do. Besides the obvious dangers, there was no guarantee that she'd ever make it out again without help.

"Ungrath!" she called again, despairingly.

Suspicion, primal fear, common sense, and general misery ganged up on her conscience and lobbied for an immediate exit from the dungeon. Eicys managed to overrule them until some underhanded corner of her soul pointed out: _but you have to find Eredolyn. The fate of Middle-earth depends on her not blabbing to Saruman. And probably all our lives depend on it, too._

_What's more important here, hm?_

Her conscience finally caved. Eicys picked up her greave, turned, and trudged dolefully toward the first staircase on the left. When she got to ground level, she didn't stop: she just kept taking every staircase she saw. Eredolyn, she figured, would be kept somewhere high. Beyond that, she didn't have any sort of plan at all -- she was too tired and miserable. Climbing the Tower of Orthanc in rusty ill-fitting armor when you haven't eaten in two days would be enough to wear out an Olympic marathoner, which Eicys most definitely was not.

She was, however, stubborn enough to make a boulder look wishy-washy. She was even stubborn enough to occasionally impress Dilly, which was saying rather more.

Eicys kept climbing.

**EREDOLYN**

Eredolyn decided that all her dreams had come true at once.

She tucked her feet up into the huge leather armchair in Saruman's library, relishing the swish and rub of dark purple velvet. It was the world's most beautiful gown. It could not have been any more perfect if she'd designed it herself. Wide medieval-style sleeves, gold cross-lacing on the bodice, intricate Rohirric knotwork embroidered on every hem…

She snuggled deeper into her chair and bent happily over her book. It covered most of her lap, and its heavy parchment pages were filled with Eredolyn's obsession – maps.

In delicate calligraphy and rich, jewel-toned illustrations, the book laid out every detail of Eredolyn's _other_ obsession – Middle-earth.

Which she was actually _living in. _She could look out the library windows and see _Fangorn Forest._

It was all Eredolyn could do to keep from bouncing up and down out of sheer bliss. Her fingers traced the southern coastline, trailing all the way down to the exotically colored Far Harad. She shivered happily. When – if – she decided to leave Orthanc, she would like to see Harad. She should ask Saruman what it was like. He knew _everything_; it was incredible. She'd had a question about Frealaf, and Saruman had actually _been to his coronation_. Eredolyn had gone away suspecting she now knew more about the Rohirric King than Tolkien himself.

Life was good.

Which was why she did not appreciate having it interrupted by an ugly little goblin in dented, mud-caked armor, even when the goblin called her by name and seemed incredibly pleased at finding her.

"Can't you see I'm busy?" she snapped.

Underneath its oversized helmet, the goblin's mouth fell open. "What?"

"I'm _reading,_" said Eredolyn. "Go away."

"But – " said the goblin.

"And you smell," Eredolyn finished. It was very true. How had the thing gotten up here, anyway? Up until now she had only ever seen human servants – brown-skinned Dunlendings, with scowling faces and soft staccato accents. She didn't like seeing an orc; it was an unwelcome reminder that Saruman might not be as wonderful as she liked to think.

"_You_ try hiking through Saruman's dungeons for an entire day and see if that fancy perfume holds up," the goblin shot back. "Eredolyn, what's wrong with you?"

"Nothing is wrong with me," said Eredolyn, who had quite liked the perfume. She could barely smell that strange herbal scent anymore. "Who do you think you – "

The goblin pulled off its helmet. Eredolyn gaped at the exhausted, mud-smeared face underneath.

"_Eicys?_ What are you _doing?"_

"Trying to save Middle-earth, apparently," said Eicys. "But I'll settle for saving you and Dilly and Cebu. I, um, I have something for you, from Tuima..."

"Oh, right, I forgot about Tuima! I want to ask her some questions about Rivendell."

"That might be difficult," said Eicys, looking at Eredolyn oddly, "since she's locked up in the dungeons and I have no idea how to find her cell again."

"Oh," said Eredolyn. "Well, that's okay. I'll just ask Saruman instead. He probably knows more about it, anyway."

Eicys stared at her.

"…What?" asked Eredolyn.

"Um. Did the word _dungeons_ completely bypass what's left of your brain?"

Eredolyn was starting to get seriously annoyed. She had practically taken up residence in the library; who was Eicys to start insulting her intelligence? She pointed this out, and couldn't understand Eicys' resulting expression of mingled fury and fear.

"Okay," said Eicys. "Okay. Something's wrong here. Something is… Eredolyn, what about Dilly?"

Eredolyn suddenly became aware of a strange fog in her brain. She blinked a few times, and said thickly, "Dilly?"

"Your best friend?" said Eicys. "You two have been joined at the hip since… since forever! Don't you _care_ that she's locked up underground?"

Eredolyn blinked again. "Saruman said she'd have her own rooms…"

"One room," said Eicys. "It's small and dark and has a giant lock on the door. Come _on_, Eredolyn, snap out of it!"

Eredolyn rubbed her forehead. "But Saruman said…"

"Saruman's _lying._ He wants the Ring, remember? Tuima's got a plan; I don't like it much – well, okay, I hate it -- but if I can't think of another way to get us out of here, then it's up to you, Ere." Eicys was talking too fast; she kept glancing behind her as though nervous.

"What's up to me?"

Eicys put her helmet on again and dug awkwardly underneath her armor to get at a pocket. "Here," she said. "It's…Um. Well, it's poison."

"For what?"

Eicys grimaced.

"_What?_" demanded Eredolyn. "Are you _crazy?"_

"We're hoping it won't come to that," Eicys said hurriedly. "I think if I can find the keys… I mean, well, I really don't want to kill anybody, but… I mean, he _is_ the villain…"

"You're completely insane!" Eredolyn cried. "That's hideous! He's an old man!"

"He's a freaking evil wizard!"

"_You're_ evil! Get out of here! And take this with you!" Eredolyn hurled the little bottle after Eicys and felt a savage satisfaction when it smashed on the stone wall.

"What's all this noise?"

Eredolyn spun around at the sound of that deep, melodious voice. "Saruman!" she said.

"Lady Eredolyn," he replied courteously, and Eredolyn felt that unpleasant fog in her brain fade away into the background, where she could ignore it. "You seem… upset," said the wizard.

"Oh – no," said Eredolyn lamely. "I'm okay, it was just…"

Eredolyn turned, unthinkingly, to point, but Eicys was gone.

**EICYS **

"Can anything else go wrong?" moaned Eicys, as she sprinted away from the library and the empty shell of her friend. The expression of vague unconcern in Eredolyn's eyes had been one of the most frightening things Eicys had ever seen. It was _wrong_.

How much had Eredolyn told Saruman already? How much longer would he let her live? Once Eredolyn had been thoroughly milked, the rest of the Immies wouldn't last much longer.

Unbidden, Tuima's voice floated through Eicys' mind:

_Screaming. Lots of screaming…_

Eicys screwed her eyes shut and shook her head violently. "There is no way this day can get any worse."

This is, of course, an extremely stupid thing for anyone to say; it is an obvious and irresistable temptation to fate. But for someone wandering the corridors of an evil wizard's orc-infested tower, it transcends mere temptation and is akin to slapping Fate in the face with a dead herring and screaming challenges. (1)

Things can _always _get worse.

In this case, they got worse in the form of a gang of goblins hanging around the bottom of the seventh staircase, jeering and snarling at each other. But they all stopped when they saw Eicys, and into each of their piggy eyes flicked an identical expression. It was a very nasty expression, and it managed to convey all sorts of equally nasty messages – the very kindest of which was: e_asy pickings._

"Oh, help," muttered Eicys.

A goblin with a missing ear sauntered up the staircase toward her. "Now, wot's a liddle baby guard doin' way up 'ere?" he asked.

Eicys said the first thing that came to her mind. "I'm looking for Ungrath!" she blurted.

The goblin hesitated. Close behind, his fellows exchanged wary looks. "It's that liddle whiner he's picked up," one of them growled.

"So?" snarled One-ear. "Stupid experiment isn't around, izee?" He turned back to Eicys. "Sorry, liddle _snaga_. Mammy ain't here." He shoved her, and she only just managed to keep her balance.

"Get away from me!" she snapped.

The other goblins crowded up. "Ooh, 'e don't like us talkin' bad 'bout 'is mammy."

"What're ya gonna do about it, maggot? Gonna kill us? Hey?"

Someone else shoved her, and this time Eicys went over backwards, landing hard on the step just behind. As One-ear closed in gleefully, Eicys kicked up and out with a strength born of desperation.

As it turns out, there are certain places that even orcs do not appreciate being kicked in. One-ear folded up with a funny little noise and an unhealthy cast to his skin. His fellows howled with unsympathetic laughter and landed a few kicks of their own on their way past.

Eicys didn't wait for them to reach her. She scrambled upright and staggered up the staircase as fast as her abused, aching legs could carry her. She gained the top and went hurtling down the corridor, five angry goblins on her heels.

_Okay_, she thought. _Now_ _things can't get any worse. _

Then the first orc caught up with her.

_I just had to think that, didn't I?_ Eicys asked herself as she was knocked heavily to the floor.

She struggled pointlessly, her flailing blows glancing off armor and gnarled, sinewy muscle -- but eventually she was overwhelmed. She curled into a fetal position with her hands wrapped around her head, and wished desperately that she was wearing twice as much armor.

An ugly eternity later, the goblins finally grew bored with the unresponsive wimp huddled on the floor. They gave her a few more kicks, for the look of the thing, and wandered off, already fighting among themselves again. Eicys heard their laughter upon meeting up with the still-recovering One-ear, and then they moved off out of earshot.

Eicys uncurled painfully and sat up, sniffling and dabbing at a shallow cut under one eye. "Aa-a- _ow_," she said, fighting tears. She tried to get to her feet and couldn't. "_OW_," she moaned, and tried again. "Ow – ouch – ow – Ohh." She wavered unsteadily and looked down at her badly dented armor. There wasn't a single inch of her that didn't hurt. Her already bruised ribs had turned into a solid mass of splintery pain; it would be a miracle if none of them had cracked.

Valiantly sniffing back tears, Eicys made her way gingerly toward the staircase. She just wanted to get out of this horrible stone tower. It had been the worst day of her life – and without Ungrath as guide and defender, it looked like the day was only going to get worse. She didn't even know how to find the mess hall, let alone –

Eicys tripped on her greave again.

_Klunk clatter CRASH._

That did it. Eicys just lay at the bottom of the steps and cried, a bruised, gasping, exhausted heap that clattered with sobs. Tears poured down her face. _I want to go home, I want to go home_, she thought. _Please, I just want to go home._

Heavy footsteps made the torches flicker. Eicys choked down her tears and scrubbed furiously at her face. Mud and paint smeared off onto her hand in thick streaks, and she stared at it in horror. Between the sweat from her exertions and her recent tears, there was barely enough of her disguise left to merit the name.

Terror rose in her throat until she choked. After all that, she was going to be caught and thrown in the dungeon – or killed, or –

"Ungrath!" she gasped.

The uruk startled. "Eicys? Where've y' _been_? I've been lookin' for y' all over th' – Hey. Are you a'righ'?"

It is a mark of how bad Eicys' day had been that the sight of a concerned face – even if it did belong to an eight foot tall Uruk-hai – was all it took to break her down entirely. She covered her face with her hands. "I'm – I'm sorry, Ungrath. I was a total jerk. I… I…" And to her shame, she started crying again, big heaving gulps that she couldn't talk through.

The uruk stared at her helplessly, his expression awkward, his eyes anxious. "Hey," he said. "It's a'righ'. I should never ha'… well, I mean, let's face it -- y'd have t' be pretty stupid t' trust—" He cut off with a choking noise. Because Eicys had stumbled forward into his arms, buried her face in his chest, and given herself over to sobs.

"…me," Ungrath finished, holding her like a man with a live bomb. "Um. Righ'."

Suddenly he stiffened. "Wha's this?" he demanded, wiping a trickle of blood out of Eicys' hairline. He tipped up her face, his thumb pressing painfully into a bruise on her jaw. Eicys hissed and jerked backwards. Ungrath let go immediately.

"_What happened_?" he snarled.

"Couple of goblins," said Eicys, smudging tears out of her eyes with the back of a hand.

"Where?"

"Upstai – no – Ungrath! Stop! What are you going to do?"

"Teach those _pershogu_ a lesson they won' forget in a hurry – "

Eicys grabbed his arm and was dragged several feet before Ungrath noticed her. "What?" he growled.

"Don't go," she begged. "Please? Besides, what good will it do, beating them up?"

Ungrath halted reluctantly, his scimitar half-drawn. "Well, it'd make _me_ feel a lot better," he said. "How – how bad was it?"

Eicys' face twisted a few times, but she finally managed to say, "Well, I had armor on, so I guess it could've been a lot worse, right?" She tried a smile.

Ungrath growled. "From now on, y' don' go anywhere withou' me, got it?" He paused. "Why're y' lookin' at me like tha'?"

"Thank you," Eicys said, and meant it.

Ungrath's ears went black. "Well," he said. "Y' need a lot of lookin' after."

Eicys' smile was a lot more genuine this time.

"C'mon," said the uruk, his face darkening a little more. "We'll get y' – " He surveyed Eicys' smeared and inadequate disguise, and quirked a grin. "—Dirtied up."

Eicys scrubbed the last few tears off her cheeks. "My life is so bizarre these days," she said, falling in behind him.

And Ungrath – who was having a lot of trouble focusing, for some reason -- glanced down at the tearstains on his tunic and muttered, "Y' have no idea."

LCLCLCLCLCLCLCLC

note (1): The herring is optional. But it definitely adds style.

Reviews, please! Let us know what you think!


	17. Taras' Bad Move

**CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Taras' Bad Move**

**TARAS**

Iron-shod feet pounded across the barren earth. Poisonous smokes curled from gaping, red-lit pits and wreathed the tower of Orthanc in a noxious black cloud. The forges' dull metallic rhythm heralded Saruman's preparations for war.

As Eicys put it, staggering out of the barracks cold, stiff, sore, and sticky with paint from her new disguise: "Another beautiful day in Isengard."

Taras slept through it soundly: there was no day or night in Saruman's dungeons. He slept with an arm curled around his head to keep the rats from his face, and dreamed about blue seas, bright sun, white stone – and, inevitably, about Maenadan.

So he didn't mind a bit when he woke up, though the darkness was always disorienting after the vivid colors of his dreams. Taras pushed away the image of Maenadan's smiling, blood-spattered face and concentrated on what had woken him.

Footsteps. Far off, but definitely more than one set. Too light for Uruk-hai or those experimental monstrosities – _ungrathik? -- _that Taras had heard the guards discussing. He sat up and moved as close to his bars as the chain would allow, careful not to let it clink: Dilly was sleeping.

Taras' mouth curled up a little in an unfamiliar expression – a smile. There had never been a reason for him to keep silent before now, any more than there had been a reason for speech. He spoke aloud sometimes, just to break the silence, but he'd always had the unnerving sensation that the darkness was… well, _listening_; greedily swallowing any mark of life.

It didn't work that way on Dilly. She wasn't like Taras, who bled emotions, ideas -- _presence_ – into his surroundings the way a bonfire bleeds light. She was the most self-contained person he'd ever met.

Which was yet another reason not to trust her. He'd always been good at reading people: it was a gift from his Numenorean heritage. There had only ever been two people who had given him trouble. Dilly was one.

The other one was the reason Taras was stuck in this pit.

The problem was, even if he didn't trust her an inch, Taras _liked_ Dilly. She was clever, forthright, stubbborn, and extremely difficult to impress. For Taras, this was a definite novelty. It was also a challenge, and Taras hadn't had one of those in far too long. The smile curved a little higher.

_You liked me, too,_ said Maenadan.

_Shut up,_ Taras thought viciously. He strained to see through his bars, but the angle was awkward and the raw wounds on his wrist protested the manacle's pull. He fell back and waited as torchlight and voices approached his cell.

"There's two in this hallway," one orc told another as they tromped along. Taras could see a little better as they approached: the orc carrying the torch was squat, short, and stumpy, with a broad, flat nose that covered half of his face. The orc scurrying in his wake was smaller, almost lost beneath a heavy helmet.

"The girl gets the usual," said the first orc, "but _this _un" – he pointed at Taras' cell – "this un's _special_. 'e's a tark. A tark_ prince_, 'smatter o' fact. 'e's also crazy as a cave troll in the sunshine an' about five times as dangerous. Yew go too close ter those bars an' 'e'll reach out an' kill yew wiv 'is bare hands. 'e's done it afore."

"How do I feed him then?" asked the little orc nervously. It had an odd voice for an orc: smooth and high as a girl's, though it was obviously trying for something harsher.

Stumpy-orc pointed to a long-handled pitchfork contraption leaning against one wall. "Yew put 'is plate on the floor an' push it over wiv this, see, an' then yew flip up the liddle door like _this_ an' shove it in. Got it?"

Skinny-orc nodded. "Oh," said Stumpy, "an' the tark gets extra food, an' a chunk o' bread. We're not allowed ter let 'im die. Sharkey wants 'im fer sommat."

Taras' fist tightened convulsively, and his chains clinked. Skinny jumped a little, but not nearly so much as Stumpy, who had gone the pasty greyish color of congealed gravy. "C'mon, c'mon, what're yew waitin' fer?" he muttered, already halfway down the hall. "Let's go – we still got half this section ter do."

"Right," said Skinny, who kept looking back over its shoulder -- not at Taras' cell, but at Dilly's. Suspicion ground a little deeper into Taras' soul.

There was a slight cough from across the hall once the orcs were finally out of earshot. "Taras?" Dilly asked carefully. He didn't answer. He wondered how much of the orcs' conversation she'd been awake for.

"What were they talking about?" asked Dilly.

Taras grunted noncommittally. At last he said, sounding very nearly casual, "I killed a lot of orcs when they were putting me in here."

"I didn't mean that," said Dilly. "Why does Saruman …?"

"Maybe you recall a conversation about blackmail?" asked Taras. He winced a little at the bitterness in his own voice.

Somewhat to his surprise, Dilly didn't appear fazed by it. "You never told me you were a prince," she said.

"It's not important," said Taras.

Dilly gave a little growl of annoyance but didn't say anything. After a long while, Taras said, miserably, "I didn't know they were giving me more food than the others. I didn't know anyone could survive on less than what I get."

"Knowing this place," said Dilly, "they probably can't."

Taras put a hand over his eyes. He heard Dilly sigh, and a moment later she changed the subject. "I thought the Prince of Dol Amroth was named Im – Inor…"

"Imrahil," said Taras. "He's my father. So I'm not technically a prince – I'm not even the eldest."

"You have brothers?"

"Two. And a little sister."

"Lothiriel?"

Taras was silent a moment, a flood of memories washing across his vision. He leaned the back of his head against the hatefully familiar wall, and stared into the darkness. "Yes."

The silence that followed was clearly a waiting one, but Taras didn't feel like elaborating. After a while Dilly sighed again, and changed the subject.

**DILLY**

**one hour later**

Taras broke off mid-syllable, halfway through a story that had sounded like something straight out of _Pirates of the Carribbean_ – if all the pirates had been despicable scum instead of likeable scum, and the hero of the movie had been dedicated (_very_ dedicated) to wiping them off the face of the waters. Taras obviously had a low opinion of pirates. It was almost as low as his opinion of orcs – that is, an all-consuming, implacable hatred, manifested via swordpoint.

"What's wrong?" asked Dilly.

"That little orc is coming back," said Taras. "Time for dinner." She could hear the grin coloring his words as he added, "It seemed awfully nervous, don't you think?"

"What are you planning, Taras?"

"Sshhh."

A flicker of torchlight appeared at the end of the hall and drew slowly closer. Dilly could see a short dark outline, rather smaller than most of the orcs she'd seen so far, and decidedly more jumpy. When Taras spoke, the creature leapt about three feet in the air. Dilly couldn't laugh too hard, though: she'd jumped as well. Taras' voice had gone from its usual pleasant tenor to something made of ice and steel. It was the kind of voice someone would use while holding a blade to the throat of their worst enemy. It said: I would very much like to kill you.

It said: I am restraining myself with difficulty in the slim hope that you may prove useful.

It said: Now, you _are_ going to be useful, aren't you…

But what it actually said was: "I want double rations today."

The goblin gulped audibly. "Wha—oh – but – Um. ...okay."

A pause. "It used your word, Dilly," said Taras, coldly.

"What?"

"That word. 'Okay'. I'd never heard it before until I met you, and now --"

"Hang on a sec," said the goblin. "_Dilly_? I thought it was Cebu down this hall!"

Dilly squinted. "Holy Hannah. Eicys? Is that you?"

The torch flared and wavered as the goblin threw its arms in the air. "Dilly!"

"You know each other?" asked Taras, suspicion streaking his voice like rust stains on armor.

Dilly didn't bother answering such a stupid question. "Eicys!" she exclaimed instead. "We thought you were _dead_!"

"You're friends with an orc?" The rust stains were spreading, eating holes in the metal.

"I ought to be," said Eicys. "I ought be dead about twenty times over. This place is _insane_."

"I think_ I'm_ going insane," said Taras. No one paid him any attention.

"No kidding," said Dilly. "I'm half convinced those Sonic burgers were doped, and this whole world is some kind of druggie result of too much fanfic. It would be weird enough being in a _canonical_ Middle-earth, but to be stuck in some sort of unfinished AU…"

"It appears I am insane," said Taras conversationally. "I only understood half of that. -- Oh, and I'm mute, too, apparently," he added as the girls talked over him.

"Seriously!" Eicys said. "I've got bruises from pinching myself! … I've got bruises from everything."

"How did you escape?"

"Hello?" said Taras. "What's going on here?"

"The tree… when they chased me… The tree freakin' _ate_ the orc I killed! It was horrible!"

"You killed an orc?" asked Dilly.

"Sheer dumb luck, really. I… It was… We don't belong here, Dilly."

"That's sort of how I'm feeling about this conversation," said Taras.

"Well, how do you propose we get home? You don't just stroll out of Isengard!"

Taras lost his patience. "_Excuse me,_" he said.

It was a funny thing about Taras. He was just a normal guy – bitter and suspicious and lonely, true, but still pretty normal… right up until, well, until he _wasn't._ He pulled out a certain aura and wrapped it around his shoulders and the whole universe bent itself to the sheer force of his personality.

The girls' conversation shattered and rained to the floor in useless shards. Both of them stared in the direction of his voice – Eicys in terror, Dilly with grudging admiration in her eyes. "Yes, Taras?" she asked coolly. _Not technically a prince, my foot, _she thought. Taras was Royalty written in caps, italics, and size seventy-two font.

"Would you care to introduce me to your orcish friend?" he asked, even more coolly.

"I resent that," said Eicys – a little shakily. Taras was a lot to take in when he had his Personality on.

"She's not an orc," said Dilly.

"Really," said Taras.

Eicys sighed. "Apparently Ungrath was wrong about the 'anyone with half a brain can see through that disguise' thing."

"Ungrath?" Taras asked narrowly.

"My orcish friend," said Eicys.

"All right," said Taras. "What in the Void is going on here?"

Dilly and Eicys exchanged glances. "Um," said Eicys. "Do you want the truth or the version that sounds sort of sane?"

"You'd better tell him the truth," Dilly murmured. "He gets really annoyed when you don't."

Eicys scooted a little further from Taras' cell. "Right," she said. "Well, I guess it all began with Coralie not finishing her fanfiction…"

That conversation took a long time: explaining to Taras that his entire world was the product of someone's imagination did not go over easily.

To be honest, it didn't go anywhere, at all. And it didn't go there in a thoroughly awkward fashion.

The conversation flowed a little better once they'd turned to plotting their escape. Taras was enthusiastically in favor of poisoning Saruman, though there were hints that he thought hemlock was too kind a death.

"But it wouldn't work anyway, would it?" asked Dilly. "I mean, it would throw off the story in a major way if we killed him before Helm's Deep. – We _are_ here before Helm's Deep, right?"

"Considering Isengard hasn't been flooded by a bunch of angry Ents," said Eicys, "Yes."

Dilly grinned her approval of the snark before continuing: "Not that I don't think it would be _better_ to bump him off before he can unleash an army of uruk-hai, but I'm just not sure it would _work._ It's like in Night Watch – that Terry Pratchett book, where no matter what the guy does, history still ends up happening the same way."

"What do you suggest, then?" asked Taras, striving to keep the conversation sane.

"Well, obviously we've got to get him out of the way. I suppose we could try the poison – even if it doesn't kill him, it ought to cause him enough trouble that we could escape in the meantime."

"One problem," said Eicys. "—Well, actually, about a billion, but one really big pertinent problem."

"What's that?"

"Eredolyn. She's the only one who would have a chance at slipping Saruman anything, and she's practically eating out of his hand at this point."

Taras groaned. "His voice?" he asked.

"And his library," said Dilly, grimacing. "Is it that bad, Eicys?"

"Worse," said Eicys glumly. "She barely remembered me. Half of what I said just seemed to bounce off her. The only time I thought I was getting through was when…" She paused. "Hey. Dilly. Maybe you could write her a letter or something? I bet she'd listen to you."

"Write on what?" asked Dilly. "And with what?

"Blood," said Taras, in an _isn't-it-obvious?_ voice. "And any fabric you can spare from– "

"I'll find a pen and paper!" said Eicys. Apparently orcs and Rohirric girls weren't the only brutally practical people in this world. Finger broken? Set it back yourself. Food looks like someone else _already_ ate it? Eat it or go hungry. Need ink? Open a vein.

"All of this is beside the point," said Taras. "It won't matter if Saruman's out of the way or not, if we don't even have a way out of our cells."

Which they did, actually, Taras thought guiltily. Or at least, one of them did.

**TARAS **

No one in Isengard was certain of how Taras had gotten loose a year ago; all they knew was that they _did_ _not _want it to happen again_._ But despite there being nothing visibly wrong with his old cell, the orcs hadn't been stupid enough to put him back into it. He had a new cell now, and chains, and an extra lock.

His old cell, in which he had spent two years working the bars free of their sockets, now lay directly across the hall. He had screwed the bars firmly back into place after worming free: they certainly _seemed_ solid enough. He had, after all, heard Dilly rattling them on numerous occasions.

But all it would take was a few good twists.

Taras hesitated. Of course he should tell her. He liked Dilly. And _no one_ deserved Saruman's dungeon.

A lazy, blood-spattered smile presented itself for his consideration.

…All right, he amended, maybe one person. But that was beside the point. Whether he liked Dilly or not, he simply couldn't trust her. The moment Saruman found out about Taras' old bars, the guards would be swarming all over the new door to make sure Taras wasn't trying the same trick a second time.

Which he was.

More than a year of work had gone into those bars already; and that wasn't something Taras would willingly bet on a girl he barely knew. Especially since each additional day -- each hour and minute -- that he had to spend in this place was like a sawblade rubbing on his soul and sanity.

_I can't stay here,_ he thought fiercely._ I won't. _

He realized, suddenly, that the girls' conversation was nearly over. Eicys, they had agreed, would keep exploring the dungeon and looking for keys, supplies, and weapons. Dilly would compose her letter.

Taras would continue to be useless, exactly as he had been for the last three years.

_Tell her!_

But a sudden image flashed into his mind: Dilly, wandering Isengard – alone, unarmed, inexperienced, with a wizard and an army of orcs ranged against her.

And himself, Taras, alone once more in the black, strangling silence, never knowing what had happened to her…

He settled on a decision as the light from Eicys' torch dwindled into the distance.

_Later,_ he told himself. _I'll tell her later, once I'm sure she's trustworthy._

Which meant more waiting. Taras twisted the manacle on his wrist, and went back to pacing.


End file.
